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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Class The Starwalker



Gnomes2169
2014-06-04, 01:27 AM
The Starwalker

Party role: Ranged DPS, battlefield manipulation, mobility
Fluffy fluffy backgrounds: Throughout history the beings of the worlds have looked up into the night sky, wondering what was out there and what could be found out among the glittering lights of the stars. Some even began to believe that the stars watched them, writing their fates and giving them power; which, in a plane where faith can raise gods, created a true force behind the myth. While the power granted to them never made the stars truly sentient, they have been known to grant their power, and access to the far realms, to some fortunate mortals.

These mortals are often wanderers, vagabonds, children who let the winds of fate take them where they will, and firm believers in luck and personal worth. And once they find themselves with their blessing, an order of people similar to them shows up, tells them what is going on, invites them to join... and then they leave the barely-informed fools to their own adventures and discovery. After all, the best way for an explorer to discover his own, very personal, talents is to allow them to flourish or fail on their own ability. After a time, the order will return and begin true instruction, giving this astral traveler more control over their mystical gift and greater understanding of the flows of mana and starfire running through their veins. From there, the starwalker is left to their own devices once more, they can become a steadfast member of the order, a master of mana and magic, a traveler that explores places that others can only dream of, a cross dresser that decides to wear a nun's habit, the choice is entirely up to them.
Adventurers: Starwalkers are, first and foremost, explorers. They are most commonly going to be part of an adventure that has something new and exciting for them to explore, especially if it is far away and gives the promise of adventure along the way. While combat is not necessarily what a starwalker is looking for, they typically have no problems with participating when it occurs... well, participating from a distance. Finally, despite their mystic beliefs, the majority of starwalkers are not opposed to a game of chance, and are firm believers in luck of any kind.
Alignment: A starwalker may be of any alignment, and may change alignments without penalty to her class features. That being said, they tend to be more chaotic then they are lawful, given their common background.
Religion: Most often the starwalker will worship deities of the Far Realm, exceedingly powerful Outsiders or gods of Luck, Travel, Fire or Light. Very rarely, there will be starwalkers that worship gods of the Void, Destruction or Cold, and such individuals are considered a cult among the normal order, since they dedicate themselves to the distant, unseen gods of the far realms, rather than the bright, friendly lights of hope.
Races: Anyone and anything can be granted the blessing of the stars if they go through the dedication rights, though longer lived races such as elves (particularly star elves), Elan and Aasimar/ Teiflings tend to be the most common races.
Other classes: The starwalker gets along with most classes equally, though their mystical leanings might make superstitious classes like a barbarian or hard-core religious ones like a paladin wary of them and their abilities. The starwalker most often gets along best with the party sneak, the party melee (who is there to take the hits for them and their d6 HD... always be happy about that) and any arcane or psionic class, as those two are practitioners of magics that tend to be more... accepting of the mystical. As for how other classes feel about them, this class is appreciated most by those that understand how useful a mobile, damage dealing warrior can be.
Attributes: Actually, this class is entirely independent of attributes as far as the class abilities are concerned, meaning that you, the player, can build and focus where you want. With a d6 for health, the starwalker generally will not be found as a front line tank, so strength is likely the least important stat for the class... everything else is useful, however. Put points where you see fit.

HD: d6
Alignment: Any
Starting gold: As a Cleric
Starting age: As a Cleric
Requirement: Must be from Space Australia (and dine at spaceys)... Actually, no requirements at all.


LevelBABFortRefWillClass featuresMana
1+0+0+2+2Mana reserve, aegis of the moon, void arrows2
2+1+0+3+3Mana generation, force shell4
3+2+1+3+3Consume magic, improved speed +106
4+3+1+4+4Star arrows8
5+3+1+4+4Blink, Sight of the stars10
6+4+2+5+5Uncanny dodge, solar flare12
7+5+2+5+5Nova14
8+6/+1+2+6+6Aurora cloak, astral ally16
9+6/+1+3+6+6Bonus feat18
10+7/+2+3+7+7Aegis of the stars, Vacuum20
11+8/+3+3+7+7Riftwalk22
12+9/+4+4+8+8Starfire Sigil24
13+9/+4+4+8+8Void aura, improved speed +2026
14+10/+5+4+9+9Improved uncanny dodge28
15+11/+6/+1+5+9+9Gravity well30
16+12/+7/+2+5+10+10Shred magic, bonus feat32
17+12/+7/+2+5+10+10Wormhole34
18+13/+8/+3+6+11+11Eclipse36
19+14/+9/+4+6+11+11Black hole38
20+15/+10/+5+6+12+12Aegis of infinity, starfall cascade40

Skill points: 6+int ((6+int)x4 at level 1 in 3.5)
Class skills: (3.5) Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Knowledge (geography) (Int), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Listen (wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha)
(Pathfinder) Acrobatics (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape artist (Dex), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Knowledge (geography) (Int), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Perception (wis), Profession (Wis), Stealth (Dex), Swim (Str), Use Magic Device (Cha)

Proficiencies: The Starwalker is proficient with simple and martial weapons. They are proficient with light armor as well, but not shields.

Mana Reserve (Ex): The Starwalker is a channel for mystic energies, and because of this they have access to a mystical pool of energy called Mana. They may employ this Mana in a myriad of ways, and it powers every active ability that the Starwalker possesses. Mana in this pool is spent outside of combat on the Starblade's class abilities, giving her access to these abilities throughout the day. The Starwalker may spend up to her level in Mana on any one ability whenever she assigns Mana, and most abilities have their own Mana caps that may not be exceeded. She gains 2 points of Mana for every level of Starwalker she possesses, and may reassign where she spends this Mana by meditating for 1 hour during the night*. Save DCs for all abilities that draw from this pool are 10+1/2 Starwalker level+Mana spent (maximum 10) unless stated otherwise.

*For planes that do not have a night cycle, use the current time of the Starwalker's home plane/ planet. On planes without any light or eternal night, the Starwalker may reassign her mana reserves freely by meditating for 1 hour. The Starwalker knows when she can and cannot reassign her mana pool, and how many hours she has left

Aegis of the Moon (Ex): With the blessing of the stars beginning to manifest, the Starwalker begins her long journey. At level 1 she gains Darkvision up to 60' if she did not have it before (and increases any natural darkvision by +20'), and she gains a marking that will be with her always; an Aegis that grants her extra powers, and a symbol that will grow with her during her adventures. She can choose from one of three Aegis to be marked with:

-Dazzling: The night sky has always been full of wonder, but when that wonder swirls and moves, well... that's a bit disconcerting. This Aegis manifests itself as a pendant of shimmering stars, and increases the save DC's of all of the Starwalker's abilities by 1. This bonus increases by +1 at level 5 and every 5th level after.

-Far: Everything in space is distance, and to travel it, one must be both willing and able to reach farther than normal. This Aegis manifests itself as a tabbard, covering the Starblade's shoulders and collar in a material that shimmers like black velvet. With this Aegis, the Starwalker increases the range of all of her abilities by 5'/ level, and gains the feats Point Blank Shot and Far Shot. Additionally, the Starwalker increases the save DC of her Void Arrows by +1.

-Vast: Large is the Void, and so too are the Starwalker's reserves. This Aegis manifests itself as a black lining at the edge of the Starwalker's clothing. With this Aegis, the Starwalker increases her mana reserves by an extra point each level, bringing the total Mana pool to 3/level. This bonus Mana stacks with Mana from sources such as feats or favored class bonuses.

Void Arrows (Su): 1 Mana (Maximum 15) Channeling the depths of the far realms for a fraction of a second, the Starwalker creates a crack in the world that slices through anything in its path, chilling it to the bone...and beyond. Starting at level 1, the Starwalker may launch a line attack as an at-will standard action. This attack is a 60' line, and deals 1d6+1 cold damage to all creatures along it. The Starwalker has the option to launch this arrow from her bow or crossbow. If she does so, then she may increase the save DC by her bow's enhancement bonus, and she may replace the first attack of any full attack with a Void arrow*.

A Starwalker may increase a Void arrow's damage by 1d6+1 cold damage for every 2 additional Mana spent (to a maximum of 8d6+8 cold damage), and may replace an additional arrow in a full attack for every 7 additional Mana spent (To a maximum of 3 Void Arrows per full attack).

Mana Generation (Ex): The Starwalker is a patron of the night, and during this time her powers come to her more potently. At level 2, during dusk and the night, the Starwalker increases her Mana pool by 1 Mana/ 2 Starwalker levels. This Mana must be spent on enhancing abilities she has already purchased as a full round action, and cannot increase the cost of any one ability to more than her Starwalker level. This Mana disappears at dawn.

Force Shell (Su): 0 Mana (Maximum 11) Starting at level 2, the Starwalker may spend a swift action to create a shield of gravitational force around herself. This shield grants her a +2 deflection bonus to her AC and lasts for 1 minute. This ability may be used once per encounter.

The Starwalker may spend 1 additional Mana to increase the deflection bonus by +1 (to a maximum of +13 AC) and increase the duration by 1 minute for every additional point of Mana spent.

Technically, this ability does not need to be purchased. However, spending Mana to improve it will make the ability far more worthwhile in the long run.

Consume Magic (Su): While often the Starwalker will rely on her natural powers and drawing her energies from the essence of the far realms, there are times when these energies begin to run out. In a pinch, the Starwalker may turn to... less pure sources of power, and she can attempt to consume ongoing magical effects for their raw energies. Starting at level 3, the Starwalker may make an attempt to consume any spell with a duration of 1 round or longer. As a standard action, she makes a dispell check with a caster level equal to her class level against the spell. If successful, the spell is immediately ended and the Starwalker gains temporary Mana equal to the spell's level.

This ability may also target an item with an enhancement bonus, or any wand, rod or item with spell charges. If successful, the item will lose its enhancement bonus for 1 hour, or lose one of its charges* and be suppressed for a day. The Starwalker gains Mana equal to the item's enhancement level/ the level of the charge consumed. A suppressed wand/ charge item cannot be used and it cannot be targeted by Consume Magic until the suppression is finished. Attended magic items are allowed a will save (DC 10+Starwalker level), using their owner's save bonus.

The target spell/ item must be within 60' of the Starwalker, she must be able to identify that the item is magic, and she must have a clear line of effect to the target. Mana gained from this ability must be spent on enhancing the Starwalker's abilities immediately as a swift action, and disappears at the end of the encounter.

*On a limited charge item, the charge lost is consumed permanently. On a charge per day/ week/ year/ etc item, the charge is only lost until it is given time to recharge.

Improved Speed (Ex): 0 Mana (Maximum 13) At level 3 the Starwalker's base movement increases by +10ft. This bonus increases by another +10ft at level 13.

The Starwalker may also spend mana to augment her movement types. For 3 Mana, she may walk up/ along walls at her move speed as part of a move, charge or run action, though she must end her movement on the floor as normal. For 9 Mana, she gains a flight speed with perfect maneuverability equal to her base movement speed.

Additionally, she may augment her base overland speed, increasing the bonus movement speed from this ability by +5 for every 2 mana spent on this augment alone (This does not stack with mana spent to grant different movement types).

Star Arrows (Su): 1 Mana (Maximum 15) Focusing the flames of the stars into a true shape, the Starwalker is able to launch arrows of starfire at her foes. At level 4 as an at-will standard action, the Starwalker makes a ranged touch attack against one target up to 100' away, dealing 1d6+1 fire damage to the target if she hits. Whenever she takes a full attack action with a bow, she may replace one of her normal arrows with a star arrow, and she increases the ability's range by her bow's range increments.

The Starwalker may increase the cost to increase the damage of each arrow by 1d6+1 for every 1 additional Mana spent (to a maximum of 15d6+15 fire damage), and every 7 additional Mana spent allows her to replace an extra attack whenever she full attacks (to a maximum of 3 star arrows per full attack).

*Just a note, Void or Star arrows may be used to replace the arrows used in the same full attack, though each one must replace a separate attack. Also note, arrows made by the splitting weapon enhancement do not double a Void or Star arrow, and makes a normal arrow that can be replaced or fired as usual.

Ex: The Starwalker has 8 mana in both Void and Star arrows, meaning that she may replace any 2 arrows in her full attack with Void arrows, and any 2 arrows in her full attack with Star arrows. For the sake of simplicity, let's say that she normally fires 4 arrows a round, so normally this would be exactly enough to replace every arrow she can fire. However, she also has the splitting weapon enhancement, which gives her 4 additional arrows per full attack. These arrows can be replaced or left alone, but they are not automatically Void or Star arrows. Even if they are paired with a special arrow they must still target the same creature (as per the splitting enhancement rules).

Blink (Su): 3 Mana (Maximum 11) Travelers of the astral realms must be able to cross distances quickly, and they must learn how to shift out of harm's way at a moment's notice. At level 5, the Starwalker may teleport up to her base movement speed in any direction as a move action. This teleportation has no chance of failure and ignores anything that prevents line of effect. This ability has a 1d4 round cooldown before it can be used again.

If the Starwalker spends 4 additional Mana she may use Blink as an immediate action to avoid any one targeted or line spell or attack, and if she spends 4 additional Mana she will double the range of the ability. This second enhancement can be purchased twice, doubling the movement range each time.

Sight of the Stars (Ex): With her mystic connection to the stars and all things physical and ethereal, the Starwalker can feel even the smallest difference in her surroundings and ignore most forms of magical and physical concealment. At level 5, she gains blindsense 30' from herself (this functions as normal blindsense, despite the flavor text). The radius of this blindsense is modified by the Far Aegis.

Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At level 6, the Starwalker's senses for detecting the unseen have sharpened to the point where she can avoid even concealed attacks. She gains the class feature Uncanny Dodge as if she was a rogue of the same level.

Solar Flare (Su): 4 Mana (Maximum 10) The light of the stars, while seeming to be small and insignificant, are bright enough to light up the night and sky. If brought suddenly closer, this light can be more than a little painful and blinding. At level 6, as an at-will standard action the Starwalker may release an intense flash of light that has a chance to blind her enemies. All creatures with eyes in a 40' cone must make a reflex save or be blinded for 1d3 rounds. On a successful save, they are dazzled for the same duration instead. If undead are struck by this cone, then they are automatically blinded for 2 rounds, and both undead and oozes must make a fortitude save or be dealt 4d6 radiant damage. Solare Flare has a cooldown of 1d4 rounds after it is used.

If the Starblade spends an additional 3 mana she increases the damage dealt to undead and oozes by +4d6, and if she spends an additional 6 mana she may also manifest the Solar Flare as a 40' burst (centered on herself) instead of as a 40' cone.

Nova (Su): 4 mana (Maximum 20) At level 7, the Starwalker may unleash a ball of volatile flames from her hands to blast apart her enemies. As a standard action, the Starwalker may launch a fist-sized ball of flames at a square within 100' of her. The Starwalker rolls a ranged touch attack for all enemies that are along the line between her and the destination, and if she is successful then these enemies are dealt 3d6+3 fire damage. Once it reaches its destination, the ball of flames erupts into a damaging nova, dealing 4d6+4 fire damage to all creatures in a 30' radius*. Creatures in this radius may make a reflex save for half damage. This ability has a 1d4 round cooldown after use.

The Starwalker may increase the cost of this ability, increasing the damage of the radius effect by 1d6+1 fire damage for every 1 additional Mana spent (to a maximum of 20d6+20), and increasing the save DC by +1 for every 2 additional Mana spent beyond 10.

*The radius of the explosion is not affected by the Far Aegis, only the range it can be launched.

Aurora Cloak (Ex): Growing into her gift and gaining influence, the Starwalker manifests a robe of lightly pulsing energies that intercept and protect her from harmful influences. Starting at level 8, this energy provides a morale bonus to her saving throws equal to 1/2 her Starwalker level, to a maximum of +10 at level 20.

Astral Ally (Ex): Having traveled long and far, the Starwalker has made a few friends along the way, sometimes they decide to stick around. At level 8, the Starwalker is accompanied by a lantern archon, who's alignment always matches her own (Any potential changes in alignment will also change the lantern archon's spell like abilities, such as Detect Evil and Circle against evil to the appropriately-aligned spells). This lantern archon gains extra 1 extra hit die for every 2 levels that the Starwalker possesses, the damage of its rays increase by +1d3 per bonus hit die (to a maximum of +5d3 damage per ray), and it may fire an extra ray for every 5 bonus hit dice it gains. If the Starwalker uses any of her teleportation abilities, this archon will always reach the destination in a space adjacent to her. Finally, if this archon ever dies, then the Starwalker must wait for a week before a new one will appear and join her.

Bonus Feat: At level 9 the Starwalker may select one of the class feats she qualifies for as a bonus feat, and gains a second bonus feat from the same list at level 16. Once made, these selections may not be changed.

Aegis of the Stars (Ex): At level 10 the Starwalker's Aegis improves, removing her need to breathe (if she needed to before), granting her immunity to the negative effects of a Vacuum (if any) and granting her a new tier of powers, allowing her to choose one Aegis from the previous or second tier list that she does not have. The second tier of Aegis are as follows:

-Starfire: Drawing upon the power of all celestial bodies, the flames that the Starwalker employs become far, far more potent than that of any mage. All of the Starwalker's class abilities and spells that deal fire damage deal an extra +1 fire damage on each damage die. Additionally, this ability adds a 5' burst to all of her fire abilities, or increases the existing burst by 5'. This burst does not apply to Nova's line of touch attacks, and only procs for star arrows on a successful hit. A reflex save is allowed for creatures in this additional radius, and targets take 1/2 damage on a successful save. The Starwalker must have the Dazzling Aegis to select this Aegis, and it increases the number of stars on her pendant.

-Riftwalker: Traveling for so long has given the Starwalker the experience needed to extend and refine her techniques. Upon selecting this Aegis the range of all teleportation abilities is doubled, and the Starwalker pays 2 less Mana to purchase Riftwalk or activates Wormhole. Finally, the Starwalker does not have to pay an increased cost to use blink as an immediate action, and her cooldown on Blink is reduced to 1 round. The Starwalker must have the Far Aegis to select this Aegis, and upon selection she leaves a trail of black steps that quickly fade away wherever she walks.

-Manaweaver: Having utilized her powers constantly, the Starwalker has learned how to use them more effectively than most. Upon selecting this Aegis, the Starwalker may increase the amount of Mana she can spend on any one ability by 2, allowing her to spend up to her Starwalker level+2 on all of her abilities, and increasing the ability's maximum Mana cost (if any, damage and other effects scale as appropriate). Upon selection of this Aegis, the Starwalker's abilities seem to become more solid, almost as if there is more to them.

Vacuum (Su): 6 mana (Maximum 16) With a snap of her fingers a a twist of her wrists, the Starwalker may rip all of the air out of an area, sucking it out of even the lungs of living foes. At level 10 the Starwalker may create a 30' radius vacuum as a standard action. Creatures that have to breathe that are present in this vacuum must make a fortitude save (DC 13+5/round they are present in the vacuum) or be staggered and take 3d6 non-lethal damage each round they are unable to breathe. On a successful save, the creature is only staggered and it does not take any non-lethal damage as it manages to hold its breath. Once a creature begins to choke, they forfeit all future saving throws against the current vacuum effect. The Starwalker must continue touching or remaining in the vacuum and she must sacrifice a swift action every round to continue the effect. The vacuum may persist up to 5 rounds before air rushes back to those inside of the effect.

The radius of Vacuum is modified by the Far Aegis, and a Starblade may create one Vacuum per encounter.

The Starwalker may increase the cost of this ability, adding 1 additional round to the duration for every 2 additional Mana spent.

Riftwalk (Su): 10 mana At level 11, the Starwalker gains the ability to travel farther than ever before, stretching her abilities to break through the veils of space time. As a full round action, the Starwalker may teleport to any place within 100 miles/ class level without any chance of failure, and she will not land anywhere that would be inherently harmful to her health (though it may not be safe to land within it due to creatures or other non-environmental hazards). If she would teleport into an environmental hazard or similar effect, the Starwalker is instead deposited in the closest safe location. She must have visited this place before she can Riftwalk to it.

Alternatively, this ability may be used to planeshift, as per the spell in the phb, except as noted here. The Starwalker may take up to 8 willing creatures with her when she manifests riftwalk in this way. This form of planeshifting has 7% accuracy per character level (to a maximum of 140%... which a DM can rule just allows her to enter hard-to-reach planes), but even if the Starwalker misses her target she and her traveling companions will not be put into an environmentally dangerous situation unless the entire plane is dangerous or they fall into the wrong plane. If the planeshift misses, there is a 90% chance that the creatures shifted will be 1d1000 miles away from their intended location on the plane, and a 10% chance that they will end up on a random plane.

Activating this ability in combat provokes an attack of opportunity. This ability is not modified by the Far Aegis, and has a 30 minute cooldown.

Starfire Sigil (Su): Up to 5 (unique) At level 12 the Starwalker learns how to infuse a part of her Mana reserve within her respective Aegis. When a Sigil is created, the Starwalker spends up to 5 Mana infusing it with power and then she lets it sit, waiting to be expended. While a Sigil is active, it is considered to be spent Mana. Multiple Sigils may be active at the same time.

During the manifestation of any of her active class abilities, the Starwalker may activate and spend a stored Sigil as a free action, adding to the cost of the ability until the end of the round. This cost increase can ignore the normal maximum limit of points that can be spent on one ability, allowing her abilities to be used as if they were modified by a Starwalker of higher power (Abilities modified in such a way ignore any damage caps). These points do not count towards the save DCs of her abilities.

Up to 1/4 of the Starwalker's mana reserve may be stored in Sigils, and only one Sigil may be applied per ability. Each Sigil may only be used once/ day.

Void Aura (Su): 6 Mana Starting at level 13, the Starwalker may emanate an inky black aura that conceals her from the blades and bows of her enemies, and which wraps around her allies protectively as well. This ability causes all ranged attacks to have a 50% miss chance on her, and a 20% miss chance on all melee attacks made against her, as if she had partial concealment. Allies within 60' of the Starwalker benefit from partial concealment and are granted the 20% miss chance that comes with it. Concealment from this ability may not be used to hide. This ability is not modified by the Far Aegis, and it may be suppressed or activated as a swift action.

Improved Uncanny Dodge: At level 14 the Starwalker's mystic senses grant her an unparalleled ability to avoid unseen attacks, making it so that only the absolutely most skilled enemies can get the drop on her. She gains the feat Improved Uncanny Dodge as a rogue of the same level.

Gravity Well (Su): 12 Mana Once she reaches level 15, the Starwalker's mastery over gravity grants her the ability to create areas of such powerful force that drags foes to the ground. Upon activation, the Starwalker selects one square up to 100' away from herself to be the epicenter of the gravity well. The epicenter must be placed on the ground. Once made, this point cannot be moved and it will persist until the duration runs out. Depending on where a creature is in the gravity well, different effects will apply to it.

A large or smaller creature that is standing in the epicenter of the gravity well must make a Fortitude save each round they are present (DC 20+1/2 Starwalker levels) or fall prone and be staggered until they succeed on the save, while huge or larger creatures must make a save at the same DC or be unable to move farther than 10'. Large or smaller creatures standing in the epicenter cannot use any teleportation effects until they leave it, and may only escape by taking a full round action to move their base land speed -20' (Minimum 5'), or by having an ally outside of the epicenter pull them out, while huge and larger creature may take a full round action to move their full base move speed instead. Line attacks or abilities/ spells with a line of effect are unable to move through the epicenter, and attacks or spells with a radius (such as Fireball) that have their radius in the epicenter only affect the square that is in the epicenter. Ranged attacks and spells that come from the epicenter automatically fail as they are redirected back at the epicenter.

Creatures standing within 20' of the epicenter must make a fortitude (DC15+1/2 Starwalker level) or be staggered and has their base land speed reduced by -20' (mimimum 10') until they escape or succeed on their saving throw. A creature that succeeds on its save cannot make a full attack or other full round action, and has their move speed reduced by 10'. If a creature is only allowed a move or standard anyway (like mindless undead such as zombies or skeletons), then they may only take a move or standard once every two rounds. If a line attack or spell with a line of effect passes within this radius, it is automatically redirected into the epicenter, where it ends. Projectiles are redirected to the epicenter as well, and they automatically hit any creature that might be in it for their full damage, minus any str bonus that may come from a thrown weapon or projectile fired from a compound bow.

Creatures up to 50' farther out must make a fortitude save (DC10+1/2 Starwalker level) or have their move speed reduced by 10' and be unable to make a full attack or other full round action. If they succeed on their check, their move speed is reduced by 10' and they may otherwise move as normal. Projectiles passing through this zone are redirected towards the epicenter, and make attack rolls against every creature that crosses their path until it either successfully hits a creature or it reaches the epicenter, where it automatically hits any creature that may be trapped there for their full damage, minus any str bonus that may come from a thrown weapon or projectile fired from a compound bow.

A gravity well lasts 5 rounds and affects creatures normally immune to supernatural effects. The well extends 70' into the air and pulls any flying creature that passes through it down to the ground (applying the appropriate falling damage, no save). The radius of this ability is not affected by the Far Aegis. The Starwalker is immune to both her own gravity well and the gravity wells of other Starwalker.

Once purchased, Gravity Well may be used once per encounter.

Shred Magic (Su): Improving her ability to mine and use Mana from sources other than the stars, the Starwalker gains the ability to shred the magical protections and blessings of foes at level 16. Whenever she attempts to consume magic effects, she may make a greater dispell magic check against all current spells on the target creature. Every spell that this ability ends adds their spell level to the Starwalker's current Mana pool, and must be spent on abilities immediately. Mana gained this way only lasts until the end of the encounter.

Additionally, the Starwalker may attempt to remove the effects of a spell with a duration of permanent, the instantaneous spells Mind Rape and similar enchantment spells with an instantaneous duration and spells or rituals that create undead. Any creature that is under the effects of this magic (or is animated by this magic) may make a will save against this ability (DC 15+1/2 Starwalker level) to keep it from being removed. Creatures such as undead who lose their animating spell are instantly destroyed.

*Yes. Yes I do hate Mind Rape. A lot. Something that changes a person permanently should have a duration of permanent not instantaneous... It's dumb. >_> That would be all.

Wormhole (Su): 14 mana At level 17 the Starwalker has perfectly mastered the ability to punch through the barrier of space. As a full round action, the Starwalker may make a stationary portal immediately in front of herself that is 20' in diameter and only visible from one side. This portal leads to a sister portal (also visible only from one side), which can be up to 200 miles/ level from the other end. The destination may be placed in any environment, and up to 300' above the ground. The Starwalker must have visited the location for the destination, or had it described to her in some way. This portal lasts for 10 minutes/ level, and any creature may move through it freely as long as it is open.

While only visible from one side the wormhole can be entered from either direction, and creatures who enter it from behind (and thus unaware) are allowed a will save to keep from being involuntarily teleported. Creatures that successfully make their save are allowed to make a 5' step to escape from the draw of the wormhole. A wormhole may be manifested flat against a surface such as the floor, wall or ceiling, though if manifested in this way then it must be visible. The Starwalker must touch the outer edge of the portal upon its creation. Only one Wormhole may be active at any time, and the Starwalker is unable to close a wormhole prematurely.

Only creatures and objects that they are carrying may pass through a worm hole. So even if one end is below the ocean or in a seething pit of magma, the water and lava will not pour out of them into the destination.

Eclipse (Su): At level 18, the Starwalker gains the ability to call the night to herself, gaining increased power and ability when she does so. Once per day for up to one minute as a swift action, the Starwalker causes a temporary eclipse. During this time, night falls and the area up to 100'/ level from the Starwalker is treated as if under the effects of magical darkness (as per the spell Deeper Darkness). The Starwalker's vision is unaffected by this darkness, and she can see as far as she could on a perfect morning. Her save DCs are increased by +3, and all of her abilities are treated as if they had the Mana spent on them increased by +2. Her Mana Generation class feature treats the eclipse s if it was night time, though the Starwalker may spend mana from this effect as a free action instead of a full round one. Once she leaves the Eclipse or the effect ends, the Starwalker loses this mana. Creatures such as werewolves that transform during a full moon shift fully during this period and cannot change back until the eclipse is either dismissed or it runs out.

If the Starwalker is incapacitated or disabled in any way during this effect, the eclipse comes to an immediate end and does not restart even if she had rounds remaining for the day.

Black Hole (Su): 15 mana With perfect mastery over the destructive forces of gravity, the Starwalker can clench her fist to crush one point in space into nothingness. Upon reaching level 19, the Starwalker may target a 5' square within 100' that she has a line of effect to as a full round action. If a creature is standing at this point, it must make a fortitude save or instantly die as its body is reduced to little more than astral dust. The creature's equipment (other than artifacts) if any, is also instantly destroyed. Unattended objects automatically fail this save. On a successful save, the target is instead dealt 10d6 bludgeoning damage and is stunned for one round.

Creatures and objects that are within 20' of the target space must make a fortitude save or be drawn to that square. If more than one creature/ unattended object fails this save, then they will collide with one another, taking 2d6 bludgeoning damage per creature/ unattended object they collide with, and being rendered prone as they are dropped onto the ground in a pile. If a creature was standing in the targeted square and survived the initial effects of the black hole they are subjected to this bludgeoning damage as well, and are unable to take a move action until every other creature moves out of their square. The range of this ability is modified by the Far Aegis, though the radius remains unaffected.

Once purchased, Black Hole may be used 1/ encounter.

Aegis of Infinity (Ex): Reaching absolute mastery over her Aegis, the Starwalker realizes the full magnitude of her blessing. Finally reaching level 20, the Starwalker no longer ages and she may select a tier 3 Aegis that she qualifies for, or an Aegis of a lower tier that she does not posses yet if she so desires. The Aegis she may select are as follows:

-Moonfyre: The Starwalker's mastery over light and flames progress to the point that they burn beyond heat, and detonate with a fury few can match. Upon selection of this Aegis, the Starwalker's abilities that dealt fire damage now deal Untyped damage instead, and have their radius of effect increased by an additional 5'. All class abilities that proc off of fire damage will still do so for the abilities this Aegis modifies. finally, all of the Starwalker's class abilities have their save DC's increased by an additional +4, and the range of her damage dealing abilities is doubled. The pendant on the Starwalker's chest glows a pure, unblemished white, bright enough to read by. The Starwalker must have the Starfire Aegis to select this Aegis.

-Stardancer: Having mastered the art of fluid movement, the Starwalker knows how to blink when and where she desires. Upon selection of this Aegis, the cooldown of the Starwalker's Blink is reduced to 0, as is the cost for both the base ability and the immediate action augment. She may manifest Blink once as a free action when she makes a full attack. Her Riftwalk and Wormhole abilities both have their cost decreased by an additional 3. Upon selection of this Aegis, the Starwalker will leave a fleeting shadowy afterimage of herself whenever she moves or teleports. She must have the Riftwalker Aegis to select this Aegis.

-Endless: Becoming ever more stingy with her mana, the Starwalker perfects her refinement process, creating an echo of her abilities. After using an ability she has spent at least 10 mana on this day, she makes a free echo of that ability that manifests and resolves immediately. The echo may be used on a new area or target, and it is manifested as if it had 9 fewer points spent in it. When this Aegis is selected, the Starwalker's body seems to become larger than it is, and her abilities seem to be almost completely solid The Starwalker must have the Manaweaver Aegis to select this Aegis.

Starfall Cascade (Su): 10 mana (Maximum 20) Raising her hand to the stars, the Starwalker calls down a torrent of the heavens' flames, purging all foes who stand before her. At level 20, the Starwalker can spend a standard action to deal 20d6+20 fire damage to up to 10 target enemies within 100' of them. Targets may make a reflex save for half damage. After this first wave resolves, the Starwalker may select another group of up to 10 targets who are dealt 10d6+10 fire damage, reflex save for half. The same creature (or creatures) may be targeted by both waves, or entirely new targets may be selected, but a creature may only be targeted once per wave. Any creature that fails a saving throw on any two waves is blinded for 5 rounds, and loses any alternate sight they may have access to (such as blind sight/ blind sense) for 3 rounds. Finally, any creature damaged by this ability is permanently dazzled until they are healed by a restoration spell or subjected to a regeneration effect. Starfall Cascade may be used once per encounter.

By spending 5 additional Mana, the Starwalker may manifest a third wave that deals 5d6+5 fire damage to 10 targets, ref save for half. By spending 10 additional mana instead, this third wave deals 10d6+10 damage to up to 10 targets, ref save for half. The maximum number of waves per Starfall Cascade is 3.

Gnomes2169
2014-06-05, 01:26 AM
Astral Companion
Requirements: Astral Ally class feature, Animal Companion class feature
Effect: When selecting her animal companion, the Starwalker may choose to designate the Archon she receives from her class levels to be her animal companion. This advances HD, strength, dex, natural armor and animal companion abilities as normal. Additionally, 1/2 of her Starwalker class levels count towards the progression of her animal companion.

Astral familiar
Requirements: Astral Ally class feature, Familiar
Effect: When selecting her familiar, the Starwalker may choose to designate the Archon she receives from her class levels to be her familiar. This advances natural armor and familiar abilities as normal. Additionally, 1/2 of her Starwalker class levels count towards the progression of her familiar.

Expanded Aegis
Requirements: Level 1 or level 15, the Aegis class feature.
Effect: Select one first tier Aegis that you did not already possess (Dazzling, Far and Vast). You gain the effects of this Aegis, and qualify for future Aegis along its chain. If you possess all of the first tier Aegis, then you may select a second tier Aegis (Starfire, Riftwalker and Manaweaver) instead.
Special: You may only select this feat twice, once at or after level 1, and once at or after level 15. Each time, you must take a new Aegis that you do not possess.

Large Pool
Requirements: Mana pool, Starwalker level 3
Effect: Upon selection, this feat increases your maximum Mana pool by an additional 1 point.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times. Each time, increase your maximum Mana pool by an additional 1 Mana.

Deep Pool
Requirements: Large pool
Effect: Upon selection, this feat increases your maximum Mana pool by an additional 3 points. Unlike large pool, this feat may only be selected once, though its effects stack with Large pool.

Master of Arrows:
Requirements: Starwalker level 1, Point blank shot
Effect: The Starwalker's Void arrows have their difficulty saves increased by +2. As well, her star and normal arrows have their attack bonuses increased by +2.

Mana and Magic
Requirements: Caster/ Manifester level 1 and Starwalker level 1
Effect: The Starwalker's class levels count towards her qualification for feats/ templates that require a caster or manifester level, and the levels of her casting/ manifesting class count towards her Starwalker level for feat/ template qualifications.
Normal: Your Casting/ manifesting class does not count towards your Starwalker feat/ template qualifications, and vice versa.
Special: This may be taken by a wizard, psion or other casting class that gains bonus feats as a bonus feat.

Mana Caster
Requirements: Caster or Manifester level 3, Starwalker level 3, Mana and magic
Effect: The starwalker's class level is added to her effective caster/ manifester level. This feat does not grant any extra power points, spells known, spells per day or maximum spell/ power level the Starwalker may use, but it does modify effects that scale off of the character's effective CL/ ML such as damage, duration or how many power points may be spent on a single power. Finally, the Starwalker's CL/ ML adds to the amount of Mana she may spend on her class abilities, and adds 1 mana to her pool per level in a casting/ manifesting class she possesses.

Mana and Magic Converter
Requirements: Caster or Manifester level 3, Starwalker level 3, Mana and magic
Effect: The Starwalker may select any one spell/ power she has on her spells/ powers known list, in her spell book, list of spells granted by her deity, etc. She may use this spell without expending a spell slot once per encounter. She must spend 2 mana per spell level to prepare a spell in this way (never exceeding her normal mana limit on one ability), and may only have one spell prepared in this way at any time. Damage dealing spells modified in this way have any maximum damage they deal removed. The spell chosen can be changed whenever the Starwalker meditates to reassign her spent mana. Conversely, the Starwalker may sacrifice a spell upon the activation of a class ability that deals damage, adding 1d8 untyped damage to the effect for every spell level sacrificed, to a maximum of 9d8 bonus damage.

Starfire Evocation
Requirements: Starwalker level 5, Arcane caster level 5, Mana caster, School specialization (evocation)
Effect: Infusing the power of starfire in her spells, the Starwalker adds +1 fire damage per damage die to every damaging evocation spell she casts, even if they deal a different energy type normally. Additionally, she may continue progression of her spells/ day and spells known/ caster level progression, but only for Evocation spells when she adds her Starwalker level to her caster level. She may not memorize/ cast spells of a different magic school in these slots, and cannot learn spells from different schools in spell levels she gains from this ability unless her caster level would allow her to do so.

Divine Starfire
Requirements: Starwalker level 5, Divine caster level 5, Mana caster, Domain (Fire or Destruction)
Effect: The destructive spark of the Starwalker's gifts infuses itself within her divine spells, increasing their potency. Every divine spell the starwalker has access to that deals direct damage increases that damage by +1 fire damage per damage die, even if it deals a different type of energy damage normally, and increases the save DC of these spells by +1. Additionally, whenever the Starwalker adds her class levels to her divine caster level, she continues to progress the spell level of domain spells she has access to, gaining one Fire or Destruction domain spell at each caster level she would normally. This domain spell must be used on a Fire or Destruction domain spell, even if the Starwalker has access to other domains, unless the Starwalker's divine casting class would grant her spells of the appropriate level.

Starfire Kinetecist
Requirements: Starwalker level 5, Psion level 5, Mana caster, Discipline focus (Kineticist)
Effect: Whenever the Starwalker manifests a power to harm an enemy, a small stream of starfire is manifested with it. Any direct damage power from the kineticist's discipline list and any general power that deals direct damage adds an additional +1 fire damage to each damage die the effect has and has its save DC increased by +1. Additionally, whenever the Starwalker adds her class level to her manifester level, she progresses her power points/ day and gains 1 additional power known. This power must be from the kineticist discipline list, or must be a general power with the kineticist discipline tag.

Divine Traveler
Requirements: Starwalker level 5, Divine caster level 5, Mana caster, Domain (travel)
Effect: Whenever the Starwalker casts a divine spell that increases mobility, it has farther and longer lasting effects. Her spells from the domain of travel can target one more creature, and last one round longer. All teleportation spells have their range increased as if the Starwalker has one extra divine caster level. Additionally, whenever the Starwalker adds her class levels to her divine caster level, she continues to progress the spell level of domain spells she has access to, gaining one travel domain spell at each caster level she would normally. This domain spell must be used on a travel domain spell, even if the Starwalker has access to other domains, unless the Starwalker's divine casting class would grant her spells of the appropriate level.

Mind traveler
Requirements: Starwalker level 5, Psion level 5, Mana caster, Discipline (Nomad)
Effect: The Starwalker puts her nomadic psionic abilities to far greater use, using her experience and travels among the stars to improve her nomadic abilities. She increases the save DC of all psychoportation powers by 1, and reduces the cost of her psychoportation powers by 2 (to a minimum of 1). Additionally, whenever the Starwalker adds her class level to her manifester level, she progresses her power points/ day and gains 1 additional power known. This power must be from the psychoportation discipline list, or must be a general power with the psychoportation discipline tag.

Mana blade
Requirements: Starwalker level 1, Initiator class 1 or Mundane class 1
Effect: Every level of an initiator or mundane class increases her effective Starwalker level by 1/2, increasing the amount of mana she may spend on the Starwalker abilities she already has. Additionally, every level of a mundane or initiator class increases the amount of her maximum mana by +1 (not augmented by the Vast Aegis). Finally, she may spend 2 mana to increase her attack bonus by +1, to a maximum of +5.

HD: d6
Skill points: 6+int
LevelEpic level featuresBase mana pool
21--41
22--42
23Bonus feat43
24--44
25Expanded Aegis45
26Bonus feat46
27--47
28--48
29Bonus feat49
30Expanded Aegis50

Base Mana Pool (Ex): The starwalker's mana pool increases in epic levels, though at a lower rate than before. Every level of starwalker taken at and past the 21st increases the Starwalker's mana pool by 1.

Bonus feat: The Starwalker gains a bonus feat that she qualifies for at level 23 and every 3 levels after that. These feats may come from the rogue's epic feats list, from any of the Starwalker feats, and any of the epic level Starwalker feats.

Expanded Aegis (Ex): The Starwalker's Aegis becomes more powerful as the Starwalker's levels progress. At level 25 and every 5 levels after, the Starwalker may choose an Aegis that they qualify for but do not possess. She gains the full effects of this Aegis, increasing her capabilities and abilities as normal and qualifying for the next Aegis in the chain (if any).

Epic feats

Limitless Mana
Requirements: Massive pool, Starwalker level 21
Effect: Increase your maximum mana by +6.
Special: This feat may be taken multiple times. Each time, add +6 to your mana pool.

Aegis of Destruction
Requirements: Moonfyre Aegis, Starwalker level 24
Effect: The Starwalker's damage dealing abilities do not have a maximum amount of mana that can be spent on them besides level limit, and the maximum amount of damage they normally deal is removed. Additionally, the save DC's for all of her class abilities increases by +3, and all of her abilities deal +1 damage per damage die. The damage type is the same as the modified ability's. Upon selection of this Aegis, the ground under the Starwalker's feet cracks and the air vibrates around her whenever she moves.

Aegis of Phazing
Requirements: Stardancer Aegis, Starwalker level 24
Effect: The Starwalker is treated as if she is incorporeal for all weapons and magical effects, though she still keeps her str score. Additionally, she may use Blink as an immediate action one additional time per round, and adds an additional attack to her iteration whenever she blinks as part of a full attack (this attack stacks with all other sources that grant additional attacks, including the attack from the Stardancer Aegis). Upon selection of this Aegis, the Starwalker's body never seems to stop moving, even when she sits. She seems to jolt and jump, as if she is more of an image from a dream than a true being.

Aegis of Perfection
Requirements: Endless Aegis, Starwalker level 24
Effect: The Starwalker increases all of her attribute points by +1, this bonus is untyped. Additionally, she adds a +2 perfection bonus to all of her ability's save DC's, her BAB, her saving throws and her AC. Upon selection of this Aegis, the Starwalker gains a glowing gold aura that radiates ever so slightly from her skin/ scales/ what have you, and her abilities have a golden tinge to them.

Unending Arrows
Requirements: Starwalker level 21
Effect: The Starwalker may fire off one additional ranged attack from her bow (or other ranged weapon) at her highest attack bonus whenever she makes a full attack. Additionally, the Starwalker may, instead of firing normal arrows or paying Mana for her special arrows, create and fire arrows of force that never miss their target. These force arrows deal 5d6+5 force damage each and have no associated Mana cost or augments.

Stargate
Requirements: Starwalker level 27, Stardancer Aegis
Effect: Upon selection, the Starwalker gins the ability to augment her Wormhole class ability. By spending an additional 10 mana, she may designate one Wormhole to be a permanent portal in between two locations, may extend the range up to 10 light years away from her current location (so she may build portals on distant (but relatively close-ish) worlds), and increases the radius of the portal to 40'. This augment may be used 1/day, and portals made in this way may be closed at any time if a starwalker with this feat touches it and wills it to shut.
Normal: The Wormhole class ability may not be modified, and has none of the advantages listed in this feat.

A note for 3.5 players who do not know what the favored class mechanic... certain races in Pathfinder (all of the core races and some of the content book races) can spend 1 skill point or hit point to gain a bonus at each level. This bonus does stack with itself, so fractions listed below can give an actual bonus once you purchase it enough to have a full number.
RaceBonus
DwarfIncrease the deflection bonus of Gravity Shell or the moral bonus from Aurora cloak by +1/2. (Maximum +5 each).
ElfIncrease the DC of the Starwalker's Void Arrows and attack bonus on Star Arrows by +1/3.
Gnome+1 awesome point per awesome. Increase the duration of the Starwalker's multi-round abilities by +1/5.
Half-Elf+1/2 on all Knowledge (the planes), Knowledge (arcana) and Knowledge (religion) checks to identify creatures and their capabilities, and +1/2 to Knowledge; The Planes checks to identify planar traits.
Half-OrcIncrease the radius of the Starwalker's AOE effects by +1' (maximum +10').
HalflingAdd a +1/4 luck bonus to the Starwalker's AC and attack bonus with ranged attacks.
HumanAdd +1/2 mana to the Starwalker's Mana pool.
Other races
AasimarAdd +1/2 to the Starwalker's bluff, diplomacy and sense motive checks against outsiders, undead and inherently magical creatures (such as dragons).
DhampireAdd +2' to the range of the Starwalker's Darkvisioon and Sight of the Stars ability
DrowAdds +1/2 to all stealth checks, and 1' to the radius of the Void aura class ability (Maximum +10')
ElanAdd +[sup]1/10 damage per damage die to all of the Starwalker's damaging abilities.[/td]
Ophiduan+1/2 Mana, or +1/3 increase to the save bonus from Aurora cloak (Max +4).
TeiflingAdd +1/2 to the Starwalker's bluff, diplomacy and intimidate checks made against outsiders, undead and inherently magical creatures (such as dragons).
[tr]Xeph[td]Add +1' to the Xeph's base movement speed, and decrease the cost of Blink, Riftwalk and Wormhole by -1/6 (maximum of -2 cost, minimum ability cost 0).

Ring of Mana
This ring has the blessings of the stars woven within it, and increases its wearer's pool of powers. The character gains a 4 point Mana pool, or if they already had one they increase their pool by +4.
Cost: 20,000 gold
Aura: Moderate Enhancement bonus
Crafting: Forge ring, at least 15 base Mana, 10,000 gold

Bow of the Void
This +3 longbow has been magically enhanced to change its arrows into Void arrows. These arrows deal 2d6+dex bonus (minimum +1) cold damage to a 70' line, and have a ref save for half (DC 14). Ammunition modified in this way is still expended, and arrows fired from a Bow of the Void cannot be recovered.
Special: If a Starwalker uses this bow, then the Void arrows launched from it have their save DC increased by +1/2 her Starwalker level, and her Void Arrow class ability is treated as if she spent and additional 4 Mana on it*. Her Void and Star arrow class abilities may still replace attacks from this bow, as normal.
Cost: 72,150 gold
Crafting: Starwalker level 15, 36,075 gold, Riftwalker Aegis, Craft magical arms and armor

*Mana added to her Void arrows cannot exceed her 15 Mana limit (or 17 Mana limit, in the case of a Starwalker with Manaweaver)

Bow of the Stars
This +3 longbow has been magically enhanced to convert its arrows into Star arrows. These arrows deal 4d6+4 bonus (minimum +1) fire damage on a hit, and target an enemy's touch AC. Ammunition modified in this way is still expended, and arrows fired from a Bow of the stars cannot be recovered.
Special: If a Starwalker uses this bow and possesses the Starfire Aegis, she may apply the bonus damage dice and burst effect to arrows from this bow (Ref for half, DC 14+1/2 Starwalker levels). Additionally, her Star arrow class ability is treated as if she spent an additional +4 Mana on it*. Her Void and Star arrow class abilities may still replace attacks from this bow, as normal.
Cost: 72,150 gold
Aura: Major enhancement bonus
Crafting: Starwalker level 15, 36,075 gold, Starfire Aegis, Craft magical arms and armor

*Mana added to her Star arrows cannot exceed her 15 Mana limit (or 17 Mana limit, in the case of the Starwalker with Manaweaver)

Shroud of stars
This black cloak seems to swirl and sparkle, nebulas gently drifting across its fabric whenever the Starwalker moves. This cloak grants its wearer a +1 resistance bonus to tehir saving throws, and grants them a 2 point mana pool. If the wearer has a mana pool, this cloak adds an extra 2 points to it.
Special: A character may augment this cloak, spending 1 mana each time to increase the resistance bonus by +1 (to a maximum of +6).
Cost: 9,000 gold
Aura: Minor Enhancement bonus
Crafting: At least 8 mana pool, 4,500 gold

Hanuman
2014-06-05, 04:13 AM
I'm guessing this is after Space Australia is freed from the reign of Lord Freeza as it was Lord Chilled's orders that all elite warriors be trained in dance choregraphy, but DBZ mechanics usually use the Brawler homebrew class, and I see this is a caster-esque.

Your table needs scrolling on my screen.

The color formatting for your skills hurt my eyes and the attribute key is redundant unless it's changed from standard.

What is the point of having a mana system? Could you not just refluff psionic back to magic OR refluff Ki Points and save everyone involved a _lot_ of time?

The implied fluff is interesting, but I'm afraid I would probably not use the class mechanically, I would be more partial to something tied to tarot or the like to dictate the battle as this seems a little too close to a custom domained cleric so far, but I am completely willing to rescind my comment once the class is more developed. Let me know how I can help.

Gnomes2169
2014-06-05, 10:39 AM
I'm guessing this is after Space Australia is freed from the reign of Lord Freeza as it was Lord Chilled's orders that all elite warriors be trained in dance choregraphy, but DBZ mechanics usually use the Brawler homebrew class, and I see this is a caster-esque.

Yes. Yes it would be. (Yaaaaaaaay someone got the joke~ ) :smalltongue:


Your table needs scrolling on my screen.

You must have a small screen. All of it fits on mine, and I have a tiny computer. O.o


The color formatting for your skills hurt my eyes and the attribute key is redundant unless it's changed from standard.

I can change the colors, but the attribute key is actually standard for even core classes in the player's handbook. Sure I could forgo adding them, but I personally like to follow the format... it just makes the class seem more complete to me.


What is the point of having a mana system? Could you not just refluff psionic back to magic OR refluff Ki Points and save everyone involved a _lot_ of time?

If I use psionics, then I have to give it a manifester level, choose powers, etc, etc. The mana system is supposed to be a stat-independent ki-pool-esqu system that powers only the class abilities... which there are a lot of. It's also not going to be all that complicated... :smalltongue:


The implied fluff is interesting, but I'm afraid I would probably not use the class mechanically, I would be more partial to something tied to tarot or the like to dictate the battle as this seems a little too close to a custom domained cleric so far, but I am completely willing to rescind my comment once the class is more developed. Let me know how I can help.

Hahahahahahaha custom cleric domain nope. This... will be quite a bit different from a custom cleric, trust me. And a tarot class would be more of a fortune teller, and more focused on cards. Maybe you mean Zodiac? And once I get everything done, I would be happy to get feedback on abilities and balance and such!

Hanuman
2014-06-05, 03:09 PM
@Screen
There are benefits for having a computer small enough to work at a game table, such as being able to use homebrew classes without printing them.

@Skills
Attributes are keyed in the core books because they are referenced for novice players and the vertical spacing isn't usually very easy on a book format.
However, this is a homebrew forum, we fill in skills top to bottom alphabetically and the page autocompletes the attribute for us, and if it doesn't then we are almost assured to know the key attribute like we know the difference between a wizard and a sorcerer.

@Tarot
Well I mean introducing some sort of card patterning into the game would be interesting, but I tend to play bold inventive concepts. (My favorite homebrew classes are Ozodrin, Evolutionist, Gramarie and Teramach)

@Pool
Well Ki pool would work, I think it would also be interesting to see more of a maneuver approach as well.
The point is more about copying a balancepoint or mechanic directly, it saves a lot of playtesting and refining in the long run.

Well, for the class' fluff I usually like to start with archetype. What are the main character influences for this class or what parallels can be drawn?

From the names alone I see Soraka and the Diablo2 MedianXL Assassin.

Otherwise there's not enough mechanics down for me to comment on.

VoxRationis
2014-06-05, 05:08 PM
-Empty: Empty is the Void, and so too are the Starblade's reserves. This Aegis manifests itself as a black lining at the edge of the starblade's clothing, an unmoving shadow that clings to the starblade tightly. With this Aegis, the starblade increases her mana reserves by an extra point each level, bringing the total mana pool to 3/level.


The bolded text makes it seem like the starblade has nothing left, not 50% more than normal.
Also, just looking at the names, I see a strange dichotomy. Lots of the names have a mystical element to them ("Aegis of the Stars"), but others use technical, very early-modern or later terminology like "gravity well." It just seems kind of odd to me.

Gnomes2169
2014-06-06, 12:29 AM
@Screen
There are benefits for having a computer small enough to work at a game table, such as being able to use homebrew classes without printing them.

@Skills
Attributes are keyed in the core books because they are referenced for novice players and the vertical spacing isn't usually very easy on a book format.
However, this is a homebrew forum, we fill in skills top to bottom alphabetically and the page autocompletes the attribute for us, and if it doesn't then we are almost assured to know the key attribute like we know the difference between a wizard and a sorcerer.

@Tarot
Well I mean introducing some sort of card patterning into the game would be interesting, but I tend to play bold inventive concepts. (My favorite homebrew classes are Ozodrin, Evolutionist, Gramarie and Teramach)

@Pool
Well Ki pool would work, I think it would also be interesting to see more of a maneuver approach as well.
The point is more about copying a balancepoint or mechanic directly, it saves a lot of playtesting and refining in the long run.

Well, for the class' fluff I usually like to start with archetype. What are the main character influences for this class or what parallels can be drawn?

From the names alone I see Soraka and the Diablo2 MedianXL Assassin.

Otherwise there's not enough mechanics down for me to comment on.

@Screen: Fair enough, but I'm sizing the table to the more average computer screen...

@Skills: Again, it just feels more complete to me. I would rather leave the labels in personally, and not everyone knows what the skills are linked to (4.e+ players and newer players, for example).

@Tarot: Fair enough, though this won't be as out there as those classes, I'm sorry to say. :smalltongue:

@Pool: The thing about the ki pool is that everything basically costs 1 for it, while the costs of active abilities for the starblade are much more varied. As well, ki pools are linked to stats, while this class is, again, stat-independent. Also, while Ki is more of an inner strnegth kind of mystical force, Mana is a mystical force that comes from outer bodies, which fits the class a bit better.

@Character archetype: I'm going for spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace... really, the closest thing would be a world hopper with cosmic powers (such as gravity/ light manipulation). No actual character comes immediately to mind, however. I'm just trying to stick to the theme itself.


The bolded text makes it seem like the starblade has nothing left, not 50% more than normal.
Also, just looking at the names, I see a strange dichotomy. Lots of the names have a mystical element to them ("Aegis of the Stars"), but others use technical, very early-modern or later terminology like "gravity well." It just seems kind of odd to me.

Ah... yes, I will be fixing that by changing the name to Vast instead, and changing the flavor text in kind.

As for the name jumping, I would make it all mystical if I could, but some concepts simply don't fit that naming pattern. As it is, I'm just working with what I can. When I finish writing everything down, I'm more than happy to change ability names if you can think of something that would fit better.

Hanuman
2014-06-06, 04:04 AM
@Screen: Fair enough, but I'm sizing the table to the more average computer screen...

@Skills: Again, it just feels more complete to me. I would rather leave the labels in personally, and not everyone knows what the skills are linked to (4.e+ players and newer players, for example).

@Tarot: Fair enough, though this won't be as out there as those classes, I'm sorry to say. :smalltongue:

@Pool: The thing about the ki pool is that everything basically costs 1 for it, while the costs of active abilities for the starblade are much more varied. As well, ki pools are linked to stats, while this class is, again, stat-independent. Also, while Ki is more of an inner strnegth kind of mystical force, Mana is a mystical force that comes from outer bodies, which fits the class a bit better.

@Character archetype: I'm going for spaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaace... really, the closest thing would be a world hopper with cosmic powers (such as gravity/ light manipulation). No actual character comes immediately to mind, however. I'm just trying to stick to the theme itself.



Ah... yes, I will be fixing that by changing the name to Vast instead, and changing the flavor text in kind.

As for the name jumping, I would make it all mystical if I could, but some concepts simply don't fit that naming pattern. As it is, I'm just working with what I can. When I finish writing everything down, I'm more than happy to change ability names if you can think of something that would fit better.

@Screen
Was just informing you I required scrolling, I'm sure you care far more than I.

@Skills
If everyone does it surely there isn't anything wrong with it.

@Space
Space is generally far realms, your naming is themed off of the mysticism of celestial bodies.

Gnomes2169
2014-06-26, 12:58 AM
Alright, the base class features, feats and favored class bonuses (for PF) should be about done now. So I'm going to open this thread for critique... Shooting for a tier 2 here, because I don't see a reason not to. Tier 2's are fun to play. :smalltongue:

NeoSeraphi
2014-06-26, 03:22 AM
This class definitely looks interesting and I like the theme, just not the name. "Starblade" implies some sort of melee warrior, which this class is anything but. Something more like "Skywatcher" or even "Constellation", implying a more direct tie to the stars, could be better.

Gnomes2169
2014-06-26, 09:13 AM
This class definitely looks interesting and I like the theme, just not the name. "Starblade" implies some sort of melee warrior, which this class is anything but. Something more like "Skywatcher" or even "Constellation", implying a more direct tie to the stars, could be better.

I was trying to go for irony, but... :smalltongue: More seriously, I've been tossing some names around in my head, because I really do agree that starblade simply does not fit. Starwalker, maybe?

As well, I am looking for alternate "mystical" names for the more modern terminology abilities. (So gravity well and things like that) Do you have any suggestions for something that might work?

Composer99
2014-06-26, 10:19 AM
Maybe for the name of the class, "starcaller"?

Gnomes2169
2014-06-26, 05:29 PM
Hmmm, that doesn't quite capture the "travel" aspect of the class, though... I think I'll change it to starwalker later today. Any suggestion for the out of place ability names?

Gnomes2169
2014-06-27, 01:05 AM
... There's the fluff. Now then, favored class bonuses made the post too long (so I moved them to the second post) and I think I will start in on epic levels and class items tomorrow. Feedback on what I have so far would still be nice, however.

nonsi
2014-06-27, 08:48 AM
Somewhat of a nitpick, but Star arrows & Riftwalker descriptions don't indicate level.

[EDIT]: Having low HP & high-Ref + dealing a lot with energy.......... shouldn't this class possess Evasion ?

Gnomes2169
2014-06-27, 11:58 AM
I usually think of evasion as being reserved for the party sneak, which this class could be, I suppose, but ref save damage is one of the only ways to counter it... :smalltongue:

And I'll go back to fix that...

Illven
2014-06-30, 10:13 PM
Hi Nick

Down to brass tacks

There is no knowledge divine skill. I assume you mean knowledge religion? :smallconfused:

Are they proficient with light martial weapons, or just one handed? :smallconfused:

For the DC's is it class level or character level?

For Far, why not just say, add +1 to the DC

Can Void arrows be used with a weapon of speed.

Can star arrows be used with a weapon of splitting.

Does Sight of the stars immediately penetrate darkstalker? Since it's a way of having physical concealment

There is no Uncanny dodge feat.

For Aurora cloak it's morale. Not moral :smalltongue:

For the bonus feats do you need to meet the requirements for them?

For Vaccum. "Once a creature begins to choke, they forfeit all future saving throws against this effect. " Even if they later get to breathe, if they choke once, they instantly fail their saves against any and all vaccums from any and all Starwalkers? :smallconfused:

What if a Starwalker Riftwalks into lava? It won't fail, but it can't transport you into environmental hazards.

For Starfire signal. Is it up to 5, or up to 1/4 the max mana reserve.

Again no Improved uncanny dodge feat.

For gravity well is the strength check DC based off class level or character level. What if the gravity well is centered in the sky? Are flying creatures still pulled towards the ground? Do you need gravity well to be immune to other gravity wells? :smallconfused:

Does Eclipse mean that it ignores other abilities damage caps?

For Starburn is the DC based off class level or character level?

Can a Starwalker be affected by their own black hole? What if a creature is immune to death effects?

Does Stardancer's immediate blink also cost 0 points.

Can Starfall cascade block mindsight? What about Tremorsense? Also the permanent dazzle can it be healed by greater restoration, Heal?

Gnomes2169
2014-06-30, 11:08 PM
There is no knowledge divine skill. I assume you mean knowledge religion? :smallconfused:

Are they proficient with light martial weapons, or just one handed? :smallconfused:
I fixed that first one before you posted. Fixed the second one too.


For the DC's is it class level or character level?
Why would it be character level when it says 1/2 Starwalker level? :smallconfused:


For Far, why not just say, add +1 to the DC
Yes, I should probably just change it to that. :smalltongue:


Can Void arrows be used with a weapon of speed.
Nothing says that they can't. If it's part of a full attack, then you can add to it.


Can star arrows be used with a weapon of splitting.
Yes, but it increases the scaling cost, just like every other arrow you replace with a star arrow. Same goes for Void Arrows.


Does Sight of the stars immediately penetrate darkstalker? Since it's a way of having physical concealment
Does blind sense penetrate it? Because I literally stated that it's blindsense. :smalltongue:


There is no Uncanny dodge feat.
Shhhhh. :smalltongue:


For Aurora cloak it's morale. Not moral :smalltongue:
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh hhhhhhhhh :smalltongue:


For the bonus feats do you need to meet the requirements for them?
Yes. I'll be adding that note.


For Vaccum. "Once a creature begins to choke, they forfeit all future saving throws against this effect. " Even if they later get to breathe, if they choke once, they instantly fail their saves against any and all vaccums from any and all Starwalkers? :smallconfused:
Just the current one, as the note I just added mentions. :smalltongue:


What if a Starwalker Riftwalks into lava? It won't fail, but it can't transport you into environmental hazards.
... Since when isn't lava an environmental hazzard? :smallconfused: Like, seriously, it would teleport her to the closest (safe) edge from the starwalker's destination... but unless she is literally aiming for the lava, she won't land in it.


For Starfire signal. Is it up to 5, or up to 1/4 the max mana reserve.
I answered that one in skype. :smalltongue:


Again no Improved uncanny dodge feat.
Again, shuuuuuuuush.


For gravity well is the strength check DC based off class level or character level. What if the gravity well is centered in the sky? Are flying creatures still pulled towards the ground? Do you need gravity well to be immune to other gravity wells? :smallconfused:
Hmmm... should make the note that gravity wells can only be placed on the ground, since that's the only place they make sense to be. :smalltongue: And again, why would I reference starwalker levels specifically if it was character level? :smallconfused: Finally, all Starwalkers are immune to gravity wells, it does not mention that they need to have the gravity well ability to be immune to it.


Does Eclipse mean that it ignores other abilities damage caps?
Yes. I'm not sure why that is confusing, since it says it's increasing the effective level of the starwalker's class, which doesn't exactly exclude any of her abilities which scale off of levels... :smalltongue:


For Starburn is the DC based off class level or character level?
Refer to save DC's and Gravity well.


Can a Starwalker be affected by their own black hole? What if a creature is immune to death effects?
She can be affected by her own black hole, which is why placement is important. Same reason why you don't throw a fireball into the space you are standing in. :smalltongue: It's basically implosion+stuff. If immunity to death effects grants immunity to implosion, then I guess so?


Does Stardancer's immediate blink also cost 0 points.
Yes, or I would have made a note otherwise. :smallwink:


Can Starfall cascade block mindsight? What about Tremorsense? Also the permanent dazzle can it be healed by greater restoration, Heal?
"Such as" includes all forms of alternate sight, yes. And greater restoration is a form of restoration, you know. It's just better. Hence the greater. :smalltongue:

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-01, 04:18 PM
This is definitely an interesting class, and I want to do a more in depth review later. In the meantime, there are a few things that immediately jumped out at me.

I'm a bit worried about the size of the starwalker's mana pool. All of its active abilities (which include all of its offensive abilities) use a good amount of mana. If we assume 3 encounters per day and each one only lasts 3 rounds, then at level 10 even using nothing but basic void arrows will run them dry by the beginning of the 3rd encounter. After that, they'll just be a commoner with some extra senses, which isn't very good design. I realize that there are some abilities that help you recover mana, but I'm not sure how useful they'll actually be for that purpose, both don't the quantity they restore and their requirements). I would suggest either switching to a per round resource, significantly improving their ability to recover points or drastically changing the resource mechanics (and I might have a more detailed suggestion for that when I do my proper review). Some free abilities (or abilities that become free) might help to alleviate this.

On the other hand, I'm a bit worried about how powerful some of the abilities are, but I'm not sure how out of line they actually are. The ability that first, really, caused be to sit back and scratch my head was solar flare, which let's you pull off 10d6+blind damage as an aoe at level 6.

Gnomes2169
2014-07-01, 10:21 PM
This is definitely an interesting class, and I want to do a more in depth review later. In the meantime, there are a few things that immediately jumped out at me.

I'm a bit worried about the size of the starwalker's mana pool. All of its active abilities (which include all of its offensive abilities) use a good amount of mana. If we assume 3 encounters per day and each one only lasts 3 rounds, then at level 10 even using nothing but basic void arrows will run them dry by the beginning of the 3rd encounter. After that, they'll just be a commoner with some extra senses, which isn't very good design. I realize that there are some abilities that help you recover mana, but I'm not sure how useful they'll actually be for that purpose, both don't the quantity they restore and their requirements). I would suggest either switching to a per round resource, significantly improving their ability to recover points or drastically changing the resource mechanics (and I might have a more detailed suggestion for that when I do my proper review). Some free abilities (or abilities that become free) might help to alleviate this.

On the other hand, I'm a bit worried about how powerful some of the abilities are, but I'm not sure how out of line they actually are. The ability that first, really, caused be to sit back and scratch my head was solar flare, which let's you pull off 10d6+blind damage as an aoe at level 6.

Actually, playing around your mana pool is part of the balancing point for this class. Yes, you can be very, very powerful/ round and kill most monsters in the first encounter or two that you run face first into... but after that, you will be hurting for mana and basically be SOL because of the choices you made. I'm hoping that this will curb people from overrunning every encounter with pure DPS and get them to synergize with their party members instead of one-man rofl stomping things until they become useless. Basically, the perfect situation for them in my mind is that the Starwalker either dispatches a group of smaller enemies once an encounter stars (in, say, a horde battle situation), or it "paints" a higher priority target, dealing good damage to them but leaving it to less resource-dependent allies to finish off/ hold at bay until the Starwalker can finish it off (and thus save mana for later encounters). Alternately, and more realistically, the Starwalker will just be killing anything the wizard misses/ the thing that saves against the wizard's save or lose spell, but I like to live in my delusions. :smalltongue:

And as for abilities that become free, look no further than Blink, specifically the Stardancer Aegis (which is level 20, yes, but still...). Both the move and immediate versions of blink are free if you take that Aegis, and you get a free Void or Star arrow whenever you use it to boot! (Yes it's just one Aegis, but then you look at the Manaweaver Aegis (Level 10, -1 to all ability costs, minimum 1) and Endless Aegis (Level 20, any ability you had before level 10 is manifested again at level 10 for free), which together basically gives you +100% to your mana pool by the end of the day.) I suppose star arrows could start out cheaper, now that I think about it, same with Riftwalk, Wormhole and Vacuum... though Black Hole, Gravity Well and Starfall Cascade are staying where they are, as they are basically "win buttons" in most encounters. :smalltongue:

For mana regeneration, if you find/ have items that have charges/ casters who's buffs will wear off before the next encounter anyway/ are fighting enemy casters and the like, the Consume/ Shred magic recovery system works like a charm. You can regain 1 mana/ consumed spell level, giving you a bit of synergy with your friendly neighborhood caster. Also, you can even use it to disable magical traps, profiting from the act in the process! This basically sums up to "enjoy nomming things in a high magic setting"... and if all else fails, you can resort to cannibalizing your magic items for a day, gaining mana equal to their enhancement level. It's not in any way recommended, but it is a last-resort option. (Because of this, it's always suggested to carry around a decently high-charge and medium leveled limited charge item that you won't use much... so that you can recover your mana without losing access to your other items). As for the other method of recovery... I was considering bumping up Mana generation to 1 point/ 2 levels during night, which would be much more worthwhile and keep your sustainability up whenever you needed it. Have any suggestions for alternate methods of recovery? (I do want to keep it mana pool/ day, though, for reasons mentioned before)

And Solar Flare only deals damage to Oozes and Undead... which are damaged by light spells normally. :smalltongue: Though I'm lowering that to 8d6 damage instead. Yes, that makes it very good against skeleton hordes... but even CR6 undead typically have more than the HP or abilities necessary to deal with 8d6 damage and still keep fighting. And a shocking number of undead have alternate forms of sight, so the auto-blind isn't really all that terrible against somewhere around 60% of the undead you would find in-game... :/

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-02, 01:04 AM
Actually, playing around your mana pool is part of the balancing point for this class. Yes, you can be very, very powerful/ round and kill most monsters in the first encounter or two that you run face first into... but after that, you will be hurting for mana and basically be SOL because of the choices you made. I'm hoping that this will curb people from overrunning every encounter with pure DPS and get them to synergize with their party members instead of one-man rofl stomping things until they become useless. Basically, the perfect situation for them in my mind is that the Starwalker either dispatches a group of smaller enemies once an encounter stars (in, say, a horde battle situation), or it "paints" a higher priority target, dealing good damage to them but leaving it to less resource-dependent allies to finish off/ hold at bay until the Starwalker can finish it off (and thus save mana for later encounters). Alternately, and more realistically, the Starwalker will just be killing anything the wizard misses/ the thing that saves against the wizard's save or lose spell, but I like to live in my delusions. :smalltongue:

That sounds nice, but I don't think it really works in practice. In the end, I think you run into the same problem wizards do: You have this resource that you're supposed to carefully manage, but you don't have any real options other than using it. I mean, technically you could do something like shoot your bow, but this is a class with a poor BAB and little-to-nothing augmenting normal combat, so that's not exactly a fun option (eventually you could also use wands and magic items, but those are generic and if you wanted to cast normal spells you would have been a wizard). You also can't just use your lower cost abilities, because even your first ability won't let you finish 3 full encounters at level 10. Basically, you want them to spend wisely, but you haven't given them any tools to do that.

This philosophy also messes with the balance in other, more subtle, ways. Because their abilities are on such a limited resource, particularly since all of their abilities are on that resource, they have to be worth while to justify their use. This often means that they have to be unreasonably powerful when compared to non-limited options. It's that sort of philosophy that puts wizards and other casters so far ahead of mundane or less limited classes. If they had other options, their spells could be less powerful and still worth while, but they don't so they break things.

Really, what you want to do is design their abilities so they can be used consistently with out them breaking encounters, because designing roller-coaster where they have the option of breaking face and then being useless for the rest of the day (or being useless for half of each encounter) doesn't actually encourage working together (that's more based on what the abilities actually do) and is more likely to break immersion or force players out of the game at regular intervals (either the starwalker because they've run out/are saving mana or the other players because the starwalker one the encounter for them) isn't a good plan. Limited use doesn't unbreak broken abilities and broken abilities don't justify uselessness.


And as for abilities that become free, look no further than Blink, specifically the Stardancer Aegis (which is level 20, yes, but still...).
No "but stills". If it comes at level 20, then it has an, at best, marginal impact on the class. Look at it this way, picture the overall impact an ability has on the classes balance as the area under the curve for a graph with the given impact an ability has at each level on the y-axis and the class levels on the x-axis. Even if an ability has a huge impact on a single level, it's still not going to have a large impact on the class as a whole. This is particularly true at level 20, which many games don't reach.

Put more simply, if a core ability is broken for most of the class, then the class is broken. A fix at the last level doesn't fix the class unless you expect it to only be used at level 20+ (and always taken single class).


though Black Hole, Gravity Well and Starfall Cascade are staying where they are, as they are basically "win buttons" in most encounters. :smalltongue:

Honestly, "I win buttons" are not a good idea. They do terrible things to the balance and tend to make other players irrelevant. I think you'd be better off toning those abilities down and making them more usable. The only exceptions to this are capstones, which are allowed to be a bit silly.


For mana regeneration, if you find/ have items that have charges/ casters who's buffs will wear off before the next encounter anyway/ are fighting enemy casters and the like, the Consume/ Shred magic recovery system works like a charm. You can regain 1 mana/ consumed spell level, giving you a bit of synergy with your friendly neighborhood caster. Also, you can even use it to disable magical traps, profiting from the act in the process! This basically sums up to "enjoy nomming things in a high magic setting"...
I don't think that's actually reasonable. Often times allied casters are going to want to keep their buffs, either because they've arranged for them to last multiple combats or because you don't actually know what's coming up next and you might be getting into another fight while they're still active. Asking another player to burn their resources or contort their play style just so you can be competent at one of your core class features is not kosher.

Similarly, while consuming/shredding enemy buffs or traps can be a good strategy, it's highly dependent on the DM, if you're fighting a lot of monsters/undead/aberrations or any number of other things there's a good chance you won't have many non-allied targets to get mana from. That kind of DM dependance is generally not a good thing. It's actually one of the reasons spelltheifs are so low on the tier system and you can even see the problem with rogues ("what do you mean this is going to be an undead campaign?!").


and if all else fails, you can resort to cannibalizing your magic items for a day, gaining mana equal to their enhancement level. It's not in any way recommended, but it is a last-resort option. (Because of this, it's always suggested to carry around a decently high-charge and medium leveled limited charge item that you won't use much... so that you can recover your mana without losing access to your other items).
Again, I'm not sure how fair this is. If I read it right, you can only nom each item once per day and after that you can't use the item. You're basically asking players to shell out for a bunch of magical bric-a-brac that they can't use and lug it around just so their class will work. That doesn't sound like particularly elegant design, especially since the rest of the class doesn't really interact with magical items. That's not even getting into how painful that could be in a low, or even medium, magic/wealth campaign.

Overall, consume and shred are great abilities, but that's because of their tactical utility, not their regen. Getting points back is just a bonus that comes with the free dispels and makes them more flavorful.


As for the other method of recovery... I was considering bumping up Mana generation to 1 point/ 2 levels during night, which would be much more worthwhile and keep your sustainability up whenever you needed it.
Honestly, I was considering that more of a fluff ability for two reasons. First, a lot of adventuring won't take place at night (and there are entire planes without day night cycles), so it's not really reliable or "whenever you need it". That could be fixed by simply having slow regen during the day and faster regen at night, but then you run into the second problem. A lot of groups don't keep strict track of time outside of combat, particularly at the hour scale, so your regen is going to add a lot of paper work, won't be particularly reliable, and it'll break entirely as soon as things get fast paced. If you really want that sort of mechanic, then per encounter really is the way to go. If it helps, you could make them meditate to get really heightened regen speed (so maybe they could recover 3/4 of their pool with 5 minutes of meditation), that way they still have to be careful with back to back encounters or time limits, but they're not dragging the campaign to a halt or dictating what hours the party can adventure.


Have any suggestions for alternate methods of recovery? (I do want to keep it mana pool/ day, though, for reasons mentioned before)

If you're really dead set on keeping it as a per day resource then I do have a few ideas that can be used separately or together:

Make abilities leave recoverable fragments that will return the points you paid in a ratio that's dependent on the power of the ability. So void arrows might have a ration of 1:1 but a stronger attack might have a rations of 3:5, that way you'll always have a basic attack (as long as you're a little careful) and stronger attacks reduce your overall capability, but not by too much.
Make costs scale relative to level. This might need to be combined with increasing the size of the mana pool and the base costs of some of the cheaper abilities so they have room to scale down. Certain abilities should eventually become free.
Introduce some free abilities. Bonus points if there's a basic attack (that will work on anyone) that also reaves points.
Make it so abilities can be cast at different power levels at varying costs. Free for a basic version, more for an enhanced version.



If I could convince you to use something other than per day (and I really feel that you shouldn't be balancing around win-button, because they shouldn't be there) then there are a few other interesting options:

I've already mentioned per encounter or per encounter with meditation. It's probably the simplest and easiest to balance. It prevents nova-ing, because they still only have so many actions and points per fight, but also means you don't have to worry about 5-minute adventuring days or standing around being useless.
Investing points: Rather than spend mana, you invest it into abilities at the beginning of the day (like incarnum). After that, abilities with points invested into them can be used at will with more points making them stronger. If you go this route, you'd want to apply cool-downs to some of the more potent abilities and maybe spread them out across the action types (swift/immediate, move, standard, passive and [maybe] full) to encourage more diverse investment, rather than just maxing a few staples.
Just for completeness, there's also per ability refresh mechanics. There are two ways to do this:


You can arrange it like Tome of Battle. They prepare a number of slots worth of abilities (given the number of abilities they have, you might want to let them prepare a given ability multiple times) and then each time they use an ability that slot gets spent. You'd then have a mechanic that lets them recover their used abilities mid fight (feel free to just steal one from one of the ToB classes) and the player always begins an encounter with all abilities available (unless you go with the crusader's mechanic). One of the fun things about this method is you can assign a higher slot cost to more powerful abilities, so they have to choose between versatility or burst power.
Alternatively, you can have each ability restore individually. The neat thing about this is you can set individual conditions for what restores them and those conditions can range from a simple cool-down to specific actions or conditions that need to be met (for example, you might have an ability that only refreshes when you take a certain amount of damage or personally kill a target). In this variant you probably want to have at-least one free ability or a set of cycling abilities (that is, they're arranged on a cool-down or condition set so that there is always one available). Another fun thing you can do with this is introduce some generic conditions, that will let you refresh any ability, and tie them to the aegises.






One really nice thing about any of the non-per day mechanics is they make a class much easier to balance, because you always know what they're bringing to the table.

Also, any mechanic that works with investment or variable costs can work in one of two ways. Either you pay more to advance it down a fixed track/scale or you can buy specific upgrades. Both have their advantages and can be used interchangeably, but the later is a nice way to add some customization and adaptability to a class that is otherwise built around fixed abilities and resources.


And Solar Flare only deals damage to Oozes and Undead... which are damaged by light spells normally. :smalltongue: Though I'm lowering that to 8d6 damage instead. Yes, that makes it very good against skeleton hordes... but even CR6 undead typically have more than the HP or abilities necessary to deal with 8d6 damage and still keep fighting. And a shocking number of undead have alternate forms of sight, so the auto-blind isn't really all that terrible against somewhere around 60% of the undead you would find in-game... :/

Alright. I'll look at it again in more detail when I go through the rest of the abilities, but I want to see how/if you change the resource mechanic first, because that will definitely effect my evaluation.

Gnomes2169
2014-07-03, 01:43 AM
That sounds nice, but I don't think it really works in practice. In the end, I think you run into the same problem wizards do: You have this resource that you're supposed to carefully manage, but you don't have any real options other than using it. I mean, technically you could do something like shoot your bow, but this is a class with a poor BAB and little-to-nothing augmenting normal combat, so that's not exactly a fun option (eventually you could also use wands and magic items, but those are generic and if you wanted to cast normal spells you would have been a wizard). You also can't just use your lower cost abilities, because even your first ability won't let you finish 3 full encounters at level 10. Basically, you want them to spend wisely, but you haven't given them any tools to do that.

This philosophy also messes with the balance in other, more subtle, ways. Because their abilities are on such a limited resource, particularly since all of their abilities are on that resource, they have to be worth while to justify their use. This often means that they have to be unreasonably powerful when compared to non-limited options. It's that sort of philosophy that puts wizards and other casters so far ahead of mundane or less limited classes. If they had other options, their spells could be less powerful and still worth while, but they don't so they break things.

Really, what you want to do is design their abilities so they can be used consistently with out them breaking encounters, because designing roller-coaster where they have the option of breaking face and then being useless for the rest of the day (or being useless for half of each encounter) doesn't actually encourage working together (that's more based on what the abilities actually do) and is more likely to break immersion or force players out of the game at regular intervals (either the starwalker because they've run out/are saving mana or the other players because the starwalker one the encounter for them) isn't a good plan. Limited use doesn't unbreak broken abilities and broken abilities don't justify uselessness.

Good points all around... which is probably why I'm switching to a combination of these two methods:


Investing points: Rather than spend mana, you invest it into abilities at the beginning of the day (like incarnum). After that, abilities with points invested into them can be used at will with more points making them stronger. If you go this route, you'd want to apply cool-downs to some of the more potent abilities and maybe spread them out across the action types (swift/immediate, move, standard, passive and [maybe] full) to encourage more diverse investment, rather than just maxing a few staples.

Alternatively, you can have each ability restore individually. The neat thing about this is you can set individual conditions for what restores them and those conditions can range from a simple cool-down to specific actions or conditions that need to be met (for example, you might have an ability that only refreshes when you take a certain amount of damage or personally kill a target). In this variant you probably want to have at-least one free ability or a set of cycling abilities (that is, they're arranged on a cool-down or condition set so that there is always one available). Another fun thing you can do with this is introduce some generic conditions, that will let you refresh any ability, and tie them to the aegises.

So that I hopefully get this:


Also, any mechanic that works with investment or variable costs can work in one of two ways. Either you pay more to advance it down a fixed track/scale or you can buy specific upgrades. Both have their advantages and can be used interchangeably, but the later is a nice way to add some customization and adaptability to a class that is otherwise built around fixed abilities and resources.

In fact, I already modified the class, since it's taking me a day to finish this reply (damn you work!) :smalltongue:


Overall, consume and shred are great abilities, but that's because of their tactical utility, not their regen. Getting points back is just a bonus that comes with the free dispels and makes them more flavorful.

True, true... though now they grant extra mana until the end of the encounter, so that adds a bit more to the tactics of Consume and Shred, I think...


Honestly, I was considering that more of a fluff ability for two reasons. First, a lot of adventuring won't take place at night (and there are entire planes without day night cycles), so it's not really reliable or "whenever you need it". That could be fixed by simply having slow regen during the day and faster regen at night, but then you run into the second problem. A lot of groups don't keep strict track of time outside of combat, particularly at the hour scale, so your regen is going to add a lot of paper work, won't be particularly reliable, and it'll break entirely as soon as things get fast paced. If you really want that sort of mechanic, then per encounter really is the way to go. If it helps, you could make them meditate to get really heightened regen speed (so maybe they could recover 3/4 of their pool with 5 minutes of meditation), that way they still have to be careful with back to back encounters or time limits, but they're not dragging the campaign to a halt or dictating what hours the party can adventure.

Hmmmmm, fair point. Instead, since I switched around how mana works, I'm trying to make Mana Generation give the Starwalker extra mana to play with at night, making it more advantageous for the group to be a bit... peculiar when it comes to their nightly activities. :smalltongue: Really, it's still mostly fluff, but it gives a good crunch bonus if given the right circumstances/ party.


Alright. I'll look at it again in more detail when I go through the rest of the abilities, but I want to see how/if you change the resource mechanic first, because that will definitely effect my evaluation.

And I lowered it to 4d6 base damage, though the ability is now an at-will standard.

Gnomes2169
2014-07-03, 06:44 PM
That... should take care of most of the typos, and the new mana system should be down now. Comments, questions, reviews?

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-03, 10:41 PM
Ok. I definitely like a lot of the changes you made, but there are also some pretty big problems with some of the abilities. So, here's my review.

Proficiencies: Seem reasonable. I'm not entirely sure why you'd include Light Martial and Martial Bows, and not just give them Martial weapons proficiencies. I'd either give them full MWP or just the bows.

Mana Reserves: Makes sense.

Aegis of the Moon: These all seem reasonable, though I'm a bit worried that the dazzling variant might be lacking compared to the others.

Void Arrows (Su): I like the way you changed this. The damage seems to be comparable to a rogue's sneak attack. It misses out on enchantments and weapon damage, but I think it makes up for that by being easier to use and a line.

Mana Generation (Ex): Again, this is now a ability I rather like. You should probably include what sort of action, if any, it takes to use this mana. Also, keep in mind that once it's night they can just meditate for an hour to completely rearrange their points, including the points from this ability.

Force Shell (Su): This is a good defensive ability to have and I like that it takes an action to activate. However, I am worried about how quickly it scales, particularly as a deflection bonus. That said, after looking at a random selection of cr13 monsters from the srd, they seem to be hitting on rolls of 12-15, which seems reasonable if you're putting a good chunk of your resources into defense.

Consume Magic (Su): The mana gain portion of this is definitely more important now. Again, you should list what type of action, if any, is required to use this mana.

Improved Speed (Ex): Before I say anything else, this ability is fine as it is. You could leave alone and it won't detract anything. Minor speed boosts are always nice and not particularly unbalancing on a mostly ranged class. That said, it's slightly disappointing that you can't invest points into this ability to improve it, like force shell. It could be a nice way to get some alternative forms of movement (wall/water walk, ignore terrain, flight, ect). If you wanted, you could make the speed boost a free passive and the more advanced uses cost a swift action and points.

Star Arrows (Su): Basically the same as void arrows. The fact that they have a different attack vector and damage type is extremly useful for getting around resistances and good saves. That said, since they only hit a single target and still do slightly less damage than a rogue SA, they might be a bit to expensive.

Blink (Su): Seems good, though the wording could use some work. I don't think you need to explicitly state that it can be used to enter cover and the part about ignoring things that block line of effect but not when they aren't cover is a bit confusing. I also wish there was a bit more competing with this for your swift actions.

Sight of the Stars (Ex): You might want to make it a bit more clear that "ignores most forms of concealment" is part of the fluff text for blind-sense, because getting to flat out ignore concealment is a bit broken. Also, it's worth noting that blindsense doesn't actually let you ignore concealment. It just lets you automatically know if things are in it's range, even if they're invisible. If you can't see something normally, it still has a 50% miss chance.

Solar Flare (Su): You might want to put a cool down on this. As it is, a star walker could probably keep most opponents blind or dazzle for most of combat, and that's a rather powerful ability to have.

Nova (Su): The line of touch attacks and then explosion is an interesting firing profile. Unfortunately, I suspect the 100' line portion it might overlap a bit too much with Void arrow. While void arrow can be fired multiple times, Nova can do a lot more damage and get bonuses from all the fire damage buffs that the Starwalker gets. That said, the cool down probably helps with that.

Aurora Cloak (Ex): I can't really comment on this one. I think it's fine, and having a bonus to saves isn't bad, but I'm not sure it's really necessary, given that this class already has two good saves, is largely item independent, and can freely assign attributes.

Astral Ally (Ex): For some reason, this highly entertains me. Especially when I start picturing nonLG archons (Clearly the CG ones are navi). That said, you might want to specify that their good aligned abilities (like detect evil and circle against evil) switch to the appropriate alignment. I'd also maybe consider a feat that gives it a few of the familiar abilities or lets it act as a familiar if you're multi-classed.

Aegis of the Stars (Ex): The base ability is nice.

Starfire: I'm not sure how the damage stacks up, but the burst is a really interesting and entertain effect. You may want to specify that it doesn't apply to the line portion of nova (other wise you might be able to hit one poor SOB 4 times with that spell (actual hit + bursts from two friends getting hit on either side of him + actual explosion).
Manaweaver: I'm not sure getting to increase the cap on1 ability by 2 points provides enough of a benefit, particularly with the way most abilities scale.

Vacuum (Su): This is the first really broken ability, but it is really broken. First off, this should not be rendering things helpless. Helpless basically means you're dead and, since anyone is free to Coup de Grace you, it shouldn't take long for that actually to be the case. Helpless is reserved solely for people who are completely at your mercy. That means unconscious, tightly bound, or completely paralyzed. The fact that this causes them to make a save every round against helplessness and you have two separate abilities that can hold them there puts it even further over the top. The potential 42d6 of damage from the ability, on it's own, might also be a bit much.

Riftwalk (Su): Neat. Possibly a bit on the powerful side, but I don't think it'll be any more game breaking then normal long range teleports. That said, you might want to put in a familiarity clause, because at the moment you can teleport, without error, to anywhere you want, including the BBEG's throne room.

Starfire Sigil (Su): You might want to explicitly state that you can create multiple sigils. (You can do that, right?) I'm also not sure if the Starfire Aegis really needs a buff.

Lingering Burn (Ex): Since all of your abilities seem to be doing reasonable damage, I'm not sure they really need this buff either and it might put them over the top, particularly when combined with the feats that extend it's duration.

Void Aura (Su): Interesting ability. I have a nee jerk reaction that says a 50% miss chance is too much, but it's positively friendly when compared to wind wall. That said, I'd still make it a swift action, so it can compete with blink for action economy, particularly since it also buffs all allies within 60'. You also might want to specify if allies can use your concealment to hide (the wording seems to imply that you, personally, don't get actual concealment, but you still might want to clarify that aspect as well).

Gravity Well (Su): This is another one of the broken abilities, particularly when combined with void. It's far too debilitating, even on a successful save (losing most of your turn for 15 rounds is a bit much), takes far to long to get out of (5 turns, assuming they make all of their saves and do nothing but move.), and requiring strength check is far to unbalancing for this sort of ability. I'm not entirely sure about it's effect on projectiles, but I suspect it's also overpowering, especially when you consider how long it takes to get out. The pinned condition also doesn't really make sense at the epicenter and does not list what the grapple DC is. Depending on what you mean by "Considered Immobile" it might also be incredibly overkill. If it's the same as Paralyzed, then it makes them helpless and see the vacuum discussion.

Shred Magic (Su): I'm worried this might give too much mana if it's used on a highly buffed target. Being able to dispel instant spells might also be problematic, because they're not actually magical by the time you get to them and can be used in lots of things (like construction) where that sort of undo button would be incredibly powerful/broken.

Also, per your comments on mind rape, plenty of spells that permanently change people have instant durations, like any sort of damage spell. Mind rape is instant, presumably, because you are actually changing the structures in someones brain, rather then overriding them with magic.

Wormhole (Su):Ooh, a stargate. Neat, but possibly highly abusable. I'd make sure there's a clause explicitly preventing environmental shenanigans (like sticking one side on the bottom of the ocean or in a volcano. Also, familiarity clauses might be a good idea. Lastly, I kinda wish there was a way to make these permanent.

Eclipse (Su): Ooh. Flavorful and effective. Since this is causing a temporary night, you might want to specify if a starwalker gets their bonus mana points. You should also probably specify what level spell this magical darkness counts as.

Part of me wants to suggest making it much bigger (like 50-100' per level). Both because it's more thematic and also because it creates a strategic downside to use (if you use it, people will know you were in the area).

Starburn (Ex): Given that this can proc off of an attack you can use 3 times per round and can last between 2 and an arbitrary number of rounds, it should be trivial to force a good number of enemies to save every-time they want to do anything. That is far to powerful.

Black Hole (Su): Horribly broken. With the way this currently works, it's basically a "Don't Save, Just Die" ability. The base effect is pretty standard and could probably be usable more than once per day (it's basically just a re-fluffed disintegrate). The initial part of the radial effect is also fine (though the helplessness needs to get dropped as usual). The main target is forcibly pinned until the effect ends is the main problem. All you need to do is get an ally who doesn't mind taking a few d6 of damage. Then, all he needs to do is lie on top of the BBEG for the rest of combat. At that point, he's pinned and can't do anything about it while you wail on him.

Aegis of Infinity (Ex): Oh, hey, biological immortality. Nice.

Moonfyre: I'm not sure how I feel about have access to so much untyped damage, but at level 20 it's probably not a big deal.

Starfall Cascade (Su): Shiny. Also, painful. I'm not entirely sure if it's too powerful or not, but you get it at level 20, so it's not too big of a deal.

Miscellaneous Thoughts

I'm somewhat concerned that most of the passive buffs only effect your fire damage. Or, more accurately, the disparity this create between Void and Star arrows is a bit worrisome. If you're specing into those abilities, then you're probably going to want to be able to switch between your arrows freely, both so you can get off a full compliment of attacks and so you can deal with monsters that are resistant to one type. Unfortunately, the Void Arrow steadily falls behind the Star Arrow, because it has a similar base but there aren't any buffs to cold damage.
On a related note, I'm also a bit worried about how much of this class' DPS comes from fire damage. It has other abilities, but running into a fire resistant/immune enemy could be problematic and fire is the most common resistance.

Part of me wishes there were some melee abilities in this class, either as an acf, feat, or normal build/power choice. The movement and defensive abilities could make a good striker or skirmisher, particularly with a swift action teleport so you can move and still full attack.

On a related note, you might want to look into how this class multi-classes, because it's a bit weird to my eye. The attribute independence and broad range of abilities tends to imply that it's meant for multi-classing, but none of the abilities scale unless you continue to take levels in this class, which is really bad for multi-classing. It may be worth considering making mana and caps work like initiator levels (that is, half of non-starwalker levels count towards your mana pool and caps) and/or a generic multi-class feat.

You might also want to look into how the arrows interact with iterative attacks and bow enchantments. As things are, splitting will cover all of your available attacks, so it might be hard figuring out how to improve your marksman ship if you want to go into archery.

Finally, some of your abilities (particularly gravity well and void aura) reminded me of abilities from the water and fire elemental tracks (mostly the water elemental) from Legend (http://www.ruleofcool.com/). You might want to try looking at how they handle things for inspiration if you go to re-balance things.

I'm also not entirely sure about the costs:available mana ratio at the moment, but I suspect that's something that would require a play test to figure out. You also might want to try getting this class run through a Same Game Test.

Finally, I'm not sure I like that Gravity well and Black hole can only be used once or twice per day but still eat up a huge chunk of your mana. With the way scaling works, that means you're going to be heavily limiting your abilities and for most of the day you won't get any benefit from it.

Gnomes2169
2014-07-04, 02:17 AM
Ok. I definitely like a lot of the changes you made, but there are also some pretty big problems with some of the abilities. So, here's my review.

Proficiencies: Seem reasonable. I'm not entirely sure why you'd include Light Martial and Martial Bows, and not just give them Martial weapons proficiencies. I'd either give them full MWP or just the bows.

Fair enough, consider it fixed. I was just thinking that a Starwalker running around with a greatsword might look a little wierd, given that I've tried to make the class as "light" as possible. In fact, on that note, I'ma remove the proficiency with medium armor...


Mana Reserves: Makes sense.

Aegis of the Moon: These all seem reasonable, though I'm a bit worried that the dazzling variant might be lacking compared to the others.

Dazzling might be lacking early game, but it's also one of the only 3 ways to add to every ability's saves, and it improves them the most (+5 vs +3...). As well, it's the only one that will last the entire day, and the only one that will give you access to Starfire and Moonfyre... but I suppose you could actually wait until level 10 to take it. (For the reason why, see the feats, specifically "Expanded Aegis". it allows you to get all the tier 1 Aegis for the cost of 2 feats, without sacrificing higher-tier Aegis)


Void Arrows (Su): I like the way you changed this. The damage seems to be comparable to a rogue's sneak attack. It misses out on enchantments and weapon damage, but I think it makes up for that by being easier to use and a line.

Mana Generation (Ex): Again, this is now a ability I rather like. You should probably include what sort of action, if any, it takes to use this mana. Also, keep in mind that once it's night they can just meditate for an hour to completely rearrange their points, including the points from this ability.
Indeed, but the points from Mana Generation will disappear at dawn. And I think I'm going to make it a full round action to spend them, since forcing the party to sit around and twiddle their thumbs for an hour once night falls would be mean. :smalltongue:


Force Shell (Su): This is a good defensive ability to have and I like that it takes an action to activate. However, I am worried about how quickly it scales, particularly as a deflection bonus. That said, after looking at a random selection of cr13 monsters from the srd, they seem to be hitting on rolls of 12-15, which seems reasonable if you're putting a good chunk of your resources into defense.
Also remember, investing in Force Shell will cut into your resources that you could use on your other abilities, which I was thinking of when I wrote this ability. Basically, at level 20 with the Vast Aegis and the feats Large Pool (once) and Deep Pool, you will have maxed out Star and Void arrows (30 mana), Void Aura (6 mana), Starfall (10 mana with one wave) and Blink (Variable cost, but let's say you went with the Starfire/ Moonfyre chain, so to max it out that's 14 mana). All together, that's going to be... 60/64 mana you have available (52 if you ignore the two range increases on Blink). If you play around with the Far/ Riftwalker/ Stardancer chain, you can get in Riftwalk and Wormhole too, but your star arrows will be quite a lot weaker, and it won't give you too much extra mana to play with. So I'm not too concerned with the scaling, all things considered. :smalltongue:


Consume Magic (Su): The mana gain portion of this is definitely more important now. Again, you should list what type of action, if any, is required to use this mana.
Changed that to a Swift action. Because you like your swift actions, and I agree that the Starwalker could use a few more.


Improved Speed (Ex): Before I say anything else, this ability is fine as it is. You could leave alone and it won't detract anything. Minor speed boosts are always nice and not particularly unbalancing on a mostly ranged class. That said, it's slightly disappointing that you can't invest points into this ability to improve it, like force shell. It could be a nice way to get some alternative forms of movement (wall/water walk, ignore terrain, flight, ect). If you wanted, you could make the speed boost a free passive and the more advanced uses cost a swift action and points.
... I like this idea, though I want to keep it entirely passive. So I'ma steal- er, use it. I'm also going to let the Starwalker add to the speed bonus for mana, though this will be a separate augment from the movement augments. So getting flight will keep you from running at the speed of sound. :smalltongue:


Star Arrows (Su): Basically the same as void arrows. The fact that they have a different attack vector and damage type is extremly useful for getting around resistances and good saves. That said, since they only hit a single target and still do slightly less damage than a rogue SA, they might be a bit to expensive.
they are 1 mana and deal an extra 1d6+1 fire per point of mana to a maximum of 15d6+15... Since you get up to 3/round, I'm pretty sure that outpaces a rogue's SA starting around round 2 in most battles. Also, they scale better damage dice wise than Void Arrows, though that's because they are single target instead of a line. I feel alright with Star arrows cost wise as-is...


Blink (Su): Seems good, though the wording could use some work. I don't think you need to explicitly state that it can be used to enter cover and the part about ignoring things that block line of effect but not when they aren't cover is a bit confusing. I also wish there was a bit more competing with this for your swift actions.
Cleaned up a bit, and with Consume Magic being changed, a little more could compete for your swifts now.


Sight of the Stars (Ex): You might want to make it a bit more clear that "ignores most forms of concealment" is part of the fluff text for blind-sense, because getting to flat out ignore concealment is a bit broken. Also, it's worth noting that blindsense doesn't actually let you ignore concealment. It just lets you automatically know if things are in it's range, even if they're invisible. If you can't see something normally, it still has a 50% miss chance.
... Good point. Fixed.


Solar Flare (Su): You might want to put a cool down on this. As it is, a star walker could probably keep most opponents blind or dazzle for most of combat, and that's a rather powerful ability to have.
Hmmm, originally, I was thinking that this would just be a once/ encounter ability, actually. However, a cooldown works just fine as well.


Nova (Su): The line of touch attacks and then explosion is an interesting firing profile. Unfortunately, I suspect the 100' line portion it might overlap a bit too much with Void arrow. While void arrow can be fired multiple times, Nova can do a lot more damage and get bonuses from all the fire damage buffs that the Starwalker gets. That said, the cool down probably helps with that.
The cooldown is in place because of that, yes. Void Arrows will still be your go-to for line damage, but if your enemies are clustered and just asking for it... well, hello Nova.


Aurora Cloak (Ex): I can't really comment on this one. I think it's fine, and having a bonus to saves isn't bad, but I'm not sure it's really necessary, given that this class already has two good saves, is largely item independent, and can freely assign attributes.

Astral Ally (Ex): For some reason, this highly entertains me. Especially when I start picturing nonLG archons (Clearly the CG ones are navi). That said, you might want to specify that their good aligned abilities (like detect evil and circle against evil) switch to the appropriate alignment. I'd also maybe consider a feat that gives it a few of the familiar abilities or lets it act as a familiar if you're multi-classed.
I'll be sure to add that note... and I guess I could add a feat for this somewhere. Would work well with the other caster-synergy feats I already have for the Starwalker.


Aegis of the Stars (Ex): The base ability is nice.

Starfire: I'm not sure how the damage stacks up, but the burst is a really interesting and entertain effect. You may want to specify that it doesn't apply to the line portion of nova (other wise you might be able to hit one poor SOB 4 times with that spell (actual hit + bursts from two friends getting hit on either side of him + actual explosion).
Manaweaver: I'm not sure getting to increase the cap on1 ability by 2 points provides enough of a benefit, particularly with the way most abilities scale.
Those poor SOB's never stood a chance... damnit Johny, I told you not to stand so close. :smallbiggrin: Buy yeah, fixed that on the line part of the effect, and Starfire's damage scales... slowly. While at level 18-20 it's a lot more damage on top of your Star arrows/ Nova, at level 10 it's... +10. Which is still really good, don't get me wrong, but a wizard and psion can get that by taking the Favored Energy feat (and that can be any energy type). And then there is the Energy Focus feat that adds more... basically, this gives your fire abilities the same blasty ability as a blasty mage that spends 3 feats to improve his damage by +1 per damage die by level 18. And while it's a lot more fire damage... it's fire damage (which you noted is really easy to resist/ get immunities to/ just flat out be immune to).

As for Manaweaver, it's mostly there to boost Void/ Star arrows and Nova (moar damage dice), Force Shell, the movement speed increases... and it grants earlier access to higher-scaled abilities at level 10. (Three max-damage Void/ Star arrows at level 13 instead of level 15 is pretty good, after all) Also, it's not just 1 ability, it's every ability. Sorry if there was some confusion there.


Vacuum (Su): This is the first really broken ability, but it is really broken. First off, this should not be rendering things helpless. Helpless basically means you're dead and, since anyone is free to Coup de Grace you, it shouldn't take long for that actually to be the case. Helpless is reserved solely for people who are completely at your mercy. That means unconscious, tightly bound, or completely paralyzed. The fact that this causes them to make a save every round against helplessness and you have two separate abilities that can hold them there puts it even further over the top. The potential 42d6 of damage from the ability, on it's own, might also be a bit much.[quote]
Changing helpless to staggered, and lowering the non-lethal damage/ round to 3d6 instead. As well, lowered the starting DC to 13, though it still scales at a rate of +5/ round a creature stays in the effect. A bit more balanced to you? (Remember, it takes the Starwlker's swift to maintain the effect each round)

[QUOTE=Epsilon Rose;17719191]Riftwalk (Su): Neat. Possibly a bit on the powerful side, but I don't think it'll be any more game breaking then normal long range teleports. That said, you might want to put in a familiarity clause, because at the moment you can teleport, without error, to anywhere you want, including the BBEG's throne room.
... Yes. Yes I might want to add that clause, since TPK's are bad. XD


Starfire Sigil (Su): You might want to explicitly state that you can create multiple sigils. (You can do that, right?) I'm also not sure if the Starfire Aegis really needs a buff.
Yes, you can make multiple Sigils... I'll just be adding that in now. And the special rule for the Starfire Aegis was sort of a fluff thought experiment... however, that is a rather big buff if used properly (4 super powered Star arrows/ round, anyone?).


Lingering Burn (Ex): Since all of your abilities seem to be doing reasonable damage, I'm not sure they really need this buff either and it might put them over the top, particularly when combined with the feats that extend it's duration.
This and Starburn, upon proper review, have been removed, because they are really rather strong/ unnecessary.


Void Aura (Su): Interesting ability. I have a nee jerk reaction that says a 50% miss chance is too much, but it's positively friendly when compared to wind wall. That said, I'd still make it a swift action, so it can compete with blink for action economy, particularly since it also buffs all allies within 60'. You also might want to specify if allies can use your concealment to hide (the wording seems to imply that you, personally, don't get actual concealment, but you still might want to clarify that aspect as well).
The 50% miss chance is for ranged attacks only, which most monsters/ mundanes don't really care about. Melee attacks will always be at only 20% miss, and it is a swift action to turn off/ on. The ability to use the concealment to hide has been considered and added.


Gravity Well (Su): This is another one of the broken abilities, particularly when combined with void. It's far too debilitating, even on a successful save (losing most of your turn for 15 rounds is a bit much), takes far to long to get out of (5 turns, assuming they make all of their saves and do nothing but move.), and requiring strength check is far to unbalancing for this sort of ability. I'm not entirely sure about it's effect on projectiles, but I suspect it's also overpowering, especially when you consider how long it takes to get out. The pinned condition also doesn't really make sense at the epicenter and does not list what the grapple DC is. Depending on what you mean by "Considered Immobile" it might also be incredibly overkill. If it's the same as Paralyzed, then it makes them helpless and see the vacuum discussion.
The penalties have been adjusted a bit, the str checks have been changed to Fort saves, and the penalties have been... modified by quite a bit. Now instead of removing all of the target's move speed and rendering them "immobile" (which would have been a Hold Monster like effect, for the record), it lowers the move speed by a set amount and at the most staggers/ knocks a creature prone... though the epicenter still requires a full-round action to escape (you get your full move speed-20 for a large or smaller creature, however, and huge and larger have no speed penalty), and failing your saving throw in the 20' radius of it has the same effect (it's like failing a saving throw against a holding spell, after all... it's going to suck for your speed). Additionally, I'm lowering the duration to a flat 5 rounds, and redirected projectiles lose their str bonus to damage if they had one. Does that seem like it's a bit more balanced out to you? (And I'm changing the uses to 1/ encounter, if it seems to be changed enough).


Shred Magic (Su): I'm worried this might give too much mana if it's used on a highly buffed target. Being able to dispel instant spells might also be problematic, because they're not actually magical by the time you get to them and can be used in lots of things (like construction) where that sort of undo button would be incredibly powerful/broken.

Also, per your comments on mind rape, plenty of spells that permanently change people have instant durations, like any sort of damage spell. Mind rape is instant, presumably, because you are actually changing the structures in someones brain, rather then overriding them with magic.
Honestly, the highly buffed target thing slightly concerns me too... I have no idea how to deal with that atm.

And as for Mind Rape... it's poorly written. If it really did rewrite the person's brain chemistary, then it should be transmutation, and parts of its effects should not be breakable by break enchantment, which... only works on an ongoing magical effect. Perhaps I should just name Mind Rape and Programmed Amnesia (which has the same problem) and be done with it? Because it's only supposed to be for effects like this, which are both instantanious but not instantanious and never go away. Not for things like Shape earth or Fireball where the magic clearly disappears instantly. I'll just make it instantaneous Enchantment spells and call it a day.


Wormhole (Su):Ooh, a stargate. Neat, but possibly highly abusable. I'd make sure there's a clause explicitly preventing environmental shenanigans (like sticking one side on the bottom of the ocean or in a volcano. Also, familiarity clauses might be a good idea. Lastly, I kinda wish there was a way to make these permanent.
Sorry, but to put some sense of balance I can't let you make infinite Stargates. :smalltongue: And clause added, now only creatures and objects they carry may move through the portal.


Eclipse (Su): Ooh. Flavorful and effective. Since this is causing a temporary night, you might want to specify if a starwalker gets their bonus mana points. You should also probably specify what level spell this magical darkness counts as.

Part of me wants to suggest making it much bigger (like 50-100' per level). Both because it's more thematic and also because it creates a strategic downside to use (if you use it, people will know you were in the area).
Hmmm, well it counts as Deeper Darkness, and yes, I do think that the Starwalker should get her extra mana. And range increased to 100'/ level.


Starburn (Ex): Given that this can proc off of an attack you can use 3 times per round and can last between 2 and an arbitrary number of rounds, it should be trivial to force a good number of enemies to save every-time they want to do anything. That is far to powerful.
And yeah, this ability is removed too.


Black Hole (Su): Horribly broken. With the way this currently works, it's basically a "Don't Save, Just Die" ability. The base effect is pretty standard and could probably be usable more than once per day (it's basically just a re-fluffed disintegrate). The initial part of the radial effect is also fine (though the helplessness needs to get dropped as usual). The main target is forcibly pinned until the effect ends is the main problem. All you need to do is get an ally who doesn't mind taking a few d6 of damage. Then, all he needs to do is lie on top of the BBEG for the rest of combat. At that point, he's pinned and can't do anything about it while you wail on him.
Gonna go fix a few of those things... and I didn't even think of the ally thing as an option. XD The helpless part is removed completely, the pinned part is now "Cannot carry out a move action", and the radius effect has been lowered to 20'. And with that, I think I'm making it a /encounter ability. Sound good? ((Also, it's closer to a refluffed Implosion ability, since the target's items are destroyed as well and it's a save or die instead of save or take a buttload of damage to the butt))


Aegis of Infinity (Ex): Oh, hey, biological immortality. Nice.

Moonfyre: I'm not sure how I feel about have access to so much untyped damage, but at level 20 it's probably not a big deal.

Starfall Cascade (Su): Shiny. Also, painful. I'm not entirely sure if it's too powerful or not, but you get it at level 20, so it's not too big of a deal.
Starfall is the capstone, and capstones are silly... though this one isn't too silly unless you take the Starfire/ Moonfyre line. Though, if augmented, the combo with Endless could be pretty powerful ass well... and of course, the combo of free Blink+Starfall is also rather powerful.
...
Okay, so for most classes this wouldn't be too silly. This one just has enough synergy to make it that much sillier...


Miscellaneous Thoughts

I'm somewhat concerned that most of the passive buffs only effect your fire damage. Or, more accurately, the disparity this create between Void and Star arrows is a bit worrisome. If you're specing into those abilities, then you're probably going to want to be able to switch between your arrows freely, both so you can get off a full compliment of attacks and so you can deal with monsters that are resistant to one type. Unfortunately, the Void Arrow steadily falls behind the Star Arrow, because it has a similar base but there aren't any buffs to cold damage.
On a related note, I'm also a bit worried about how much of this class' DPS comes from fire damage. It has other abilities, but running into a fire resistant/immune enemy could be problematic and fire is the most common resistance.
Funny thing about the void arrows and stuff... while I made it possible for you to empower your fire (by a lot), I was planning to give your Void arrows a buff and switch things around a little bit in the Pathfinder Archetypes section (The Archetype would be called the Void Cultist... based more around cold and suffocation than it would be fire. It will have three Aegis that replace the Dazzling/ Starfire/ Moonfyre chain, and Nova and Star Arrows are going to be replaced). For 3.5, however, this is something that players will have to consider when selecting Aegis to use/ focus in, since fire is such a common resistance and they won't really be able to get around that until level 20.


Part of me wishes there were some melee abilities in this class, either as an acf, feat, or normal build/power choice. The movement and defensive abilities could make a good striker or skirmisher, particularly with a swift action teleport so you can move and still full attack.
Well, don't tell anyone I said this, but... this is also a planned class Archetype (the Starblade). More Melee focused, with a set of Aegis that replace the typical blink Aegis. Also, a d8 hit die, to match the combat style shift.


On a related note, you might want to look into how this class multi-classes, because it's a bit weird to my eye. The attribute independence and broad range of abilities tends to imply that it's meant for multi-classing, but none of the abilities scale unless you continue to take levels in this class, which is really bad for multi-classing. It may be worth considering making mana and caps work like initiator levels (that is, half of non-starwalker levels count towards your mana pool and caps) and/or a generic multi-class feat.
Well, besides the mana scaling... I actually have feats in place that continue the progression of your Starwalker levels when you take caster levels, and vice versa. I guess I could add in an all-purpose scaling feat, but... I sort of ran out of room in the main post... ^^; Time to trim down the fluff, I suppose...


You might also want to look into how the arrows interact with iterative attacks and bow enchantments. As things are, splitting will cover all of your available attacks, so it might be hard figuring out how to improve your marksman ship if you want to go into archery.
Heck, the Multi-shot feat and a speed bow or the spell haste will cover all of the arrows... and beyond the normal archer stuff being full of archer things and the Master of Arrows feat... there isn't much to add to being a ranged fighter.


Finally, some of your abilities (particularly gravity well and void aura) reminded me of abilities from the water and fire elemental tracks (mostly the water elemental) from Legend (http://www.ruleofcool.com/). You might want to try looking at how they handle things for inspiration if you go to re-balance things.
Alright, I guess I'll check it out.


I'm also not entirely sure about the costs:available mana ratio at the moment, but I suspect that's something that would require a play test to figure out. You also might want to try getting this class run through a Same Game Test.
Theoretically, the mana:cost ratios should scale well enough in the late game to give you a nice selection of abilities, without letting you have all of the abilities at full power (especially with feats, the Vast Aegis and items/ favored class bonuses). Theoretically. Early game with the Cast Aegis, you will have some extra mana for a while, but I'm okay with that. That said, a same game test might be nice...


Finally, I'm not sure I like that Gravity well and Black hole can only be used once or twice per day but still eat up a huge chunk of your mana. With the way scaling works, that means you're going to be heavily limiting your abilities and for most of the day you won't get any benefit from it.
Before the edits to them, I felt like they were too strong to be /encounter... now I'm hoping that they aren't too strong anymore, and that /encounter will work.

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-04, 02:14 PM
Fair enough, consider it fixed. I was just thinking that a Starwalker running around with a greatsword might look a little wierd, given that I've tried to make the class as "light" as possible. In fact, on that note, I'ma remove the proficiency with medium armor...

That sounds like a better plan, particularly with how they're already able to boost their defenses.



Indeed, but the points from Mana Generation will disappear at dawn. And I think I'm going to make it a full round action to spend them, since forcing the party to sit around and twiddle their thumbs for an hour once night falls would be mean. :smalltongue:

That sounds reasonable.



Also remember, investing in Force Shell will cut into your resources that you could use on your other abilities, which I was thinking of when I wrote this ability. Basically, at level 20 with the Vast Aegis and the feats Large Pool (once) and Deep Pool, you will have maxed out Star and Void arrows (30 mana), Void Aura (6 mana), Starfall (10 mana with one wave) and Blink (Variable cost, but let's say you went with the Starfire/ Moonfyre chain, so to max it out that's 14 mana). All together, that's going to be... 60/64 mana you have available (52 if you ignore the two range increases on Blink). If you play around with the Far/ Riftwalker/ Stardancer chain, you can get in Riftwalk and Wormhole too, but your star arrows will be quite a lot weaker, and it won't give you too much extra mana to play with. So I'm not too concerned with the scaling, all things considered. :smalltongue:

I did say it would be fine because it required them to throw resources at it. :smalltongue:



Changed that to a Swift action. Because you like your swift actions, and I agree that the Starwalker could use a few more.

Swift action dispels, that's both unusual and rather powerful. That said, I think, with the other thing you've also put on swift, there should be enough competition for your swifts that it's ok.

Also, it might be worth noting that it's not so much that I like swifts as it is I like every action type getting used and having competition for it's use. I think it's less fun if you either do the same thing with an action every round or you can't do anything with that action at all. I keep mentioning swifts because there are a lot of classes that can't really touch them, unlike the starwalker.



... I like this idea, though I want to keep it entirely passive. So I'ma steal- er, use it. I'm also going to let the Starwalker add to the speed bonus for mana, though this will be a separate augment from the movement augments. So getting flight will keep you from running at the speed of sound. :smalltongue:

Looks good, but there are two minor problems. Overland flight isn't a defined type of flight. It's just a spell with a lower speed and longer duration then normal flight. Similarly, overland speed isn't and actual speed. It's just land speed.


they are 1 mana and deal an extra 1d6+1 fire per point of mana to a maximum of 15d6+15... Since you get up to 3/round, I'm pretty sure that outpaces a rogue's SA starting around round 2 in most battles. Also, they scale better damage dice wise than Void Arrows, though that's because they are single target instead of a line. I feel alright with Star arrows cost wise as-is...
Right. I missed that the when I read it. Sorry.

In that case, they can reasonably get 45d6+45 damage per round from star arrows alone. Then, they'd get another 24d6+24 damage from void arrows for a total of 69d6+69 damage. That has a mean of 310. (http://anydice.com/program/3fb4)

For reference, the most hp a cr 15 monster will have is 312. So, that might need to get fixed.



Hmmm, originally, I was thinking that this would just be a once/ encounter ability, actually. However, a cooldown works just fine as well.

Both versions seem reasonable. I suspect that it's something that will take play testing to really figure out. Having a few more offensive abilities that can be used more then once per encounter is probably a good thing. If it turns out to still be too powerful, a clause about averting your eyes or wearing eye protection could be added to the blindness.



Those poor SOB's never stood a chance... damnit Johny, I told you not to stand so close. :smallbiggrin: Buy yeah, fixed that on the line part of the effect, and Starfire's damage scales... slowly. While at level 18-20 it's a lot more damage on top of your Star arrows/ Nova, at level 10 it's... +10. Which is still really good, don't get me wrong, but a wizard and psion can get that by taking the Favored Energy feat (and that can be any energy type). And then there is the Energy Focus feat that adds more... basically, this gives your fire abilities the same blasty ability as a blasty mage that spends 3 feats to improve his damage by +1 per damage die by level 18. And while it's a lot more fire damage... it's fire damage (which you noted is really easy to resist/ get immunities to/ just flat out be immune to).

Ok. That makes sense.


As for Manaweaver, it's mostly there to boost Void/ Star arrows and Nova (moar damage dice), Force Shell, the movement speed increases... and it grants earlier access to higher-scaled abilities at level 10. (Three max-damage Void/ Star arrows at level 13 instead of level 15 is pretty good, after all) Also, it's not just 1 ability, it's every ability. Sorry if there was some confusion there.

Yeah, I can easily see how it's useful if it apples to multiple abilities; I just miss read it the first time. I sorta want to say that the text should be clarified, but I'm not sure how that should be done and it might have just been me derping anyways.



Changing helpless to staggered, and lowering the non-lethal damage/ round to 3d6 instead. As well, lowered the starting DC to 13, though it still scales at a rate of +5/ round a creature stays in the effect. A bit more balanced to you? (Remember, it takes the Starwlker's swift to maintain the effect each round)
Ok.

That seems more reasonable, since you have some pretty good competition for your swifts now and it's doing nonlethal damage.


... Yes. Yes I might want to add that clause, since TPK's are bad. XD
Ok. That works, though you might want to expand it to include places she can currently see and/or has studied pictures of.


This and Starburn, upon proper review, have been removed, because they are really rather strong/ unnecessary.

Probably for the best.


The 50% miss chance is for ranged attacks only, which most monsters/ mundanes don't really care about. Melee attacks will always be at only 20% miss, and it is a swift action to turn off/ on. The ability to use the concealment to hide has been considered and added.

Two things. First, without a duration, the swift action to activate isn't actually a limitation. It's nice to know, so you have an explicit on/off switch, but it's not actually competing for swifts and the action type doesn't matter too much. Second, with the hide clause in place, this is basically a drastically improved version of hide in plain sight (both because it gives your concealment regardless of hiding and because it also works for your allies). In the SRD, the only ways to get HPS are taking ranger to 17 or levels in Assassin or Shadow Dancer. The core classes might be a bit overly stingy with HPS, but automatically granting an improved version at 13 might be a bit too much. Maybe make it something they can buy for a good number of points?



The penalties have been adjusted a bit, the str checks have been changed to Fort saves, and the penalties have been... modified by quite a bit. Now instead of removing all of the target's move speed and rendering them "immobile" (which would have been a Hold Monster like effect, for the record), it lowers the move speed by a set amount and at the most staggers/ knocks a creature prone... though the epicenter still requires a full-round action to escape (you get your full move speed-20 for a large or smaller creature, however, and huge and larger have no speed penalty), and failing your saving throw in the 20' radius of it has the same effect (it's like failing a saving throw against a holding spell, after all... it's going to suck for your speed). Additionally, I'm lowering the duration to a flat 5 rounds, and redirected projectiles lose their str bonus to damage if they had one. Does that seem like it's a bit more balanced out to you? (And I'm changing the uses to 1/ encounter, if it seems to be changed enough).

Better, but still problematic.

In the 20ft zone, stagard prevents full round actions, so if you fail your save you actually can't move. Even if you were to make an exception for that, there's basically no difference between the effects of failing and succeeding (you can move 10 extra feet, but that's not a lot). I am also somewhat worried about having 145ft wide circle that you can't shoot through.

Overall, I think this still might be a bit too powerful, but it's definitely getting there.



Honestly, the highly buffed target thing slightly concerns me too... I have no idea how to deal with that atm.
Neither do I, but I'd start by making shred a standard action. It's a bit to powerful as a swift, particularly since it's an at will save or die against undead (although, animate undead isn't actually an enchantment spell, so you might need to update the example).


And as for Mind Rape... it's poorly written. If it really did rewrite the person's brain chemistary, then it should be transmutation, and parts of its effects should not be breakable by break enchantment, which... only works on an ongoing magical effect. Perhaps I should just name Mind Rape and Programmed Amnesia (which has the same problem) and be done with it? Because it's only supposed to be for effects like this, which are both instantanious but not instantanious and never go away. Not for things like Shape earth or Fireball where the magic clearly disappears instantly. I'll just make it instantaneous Enchantment spells and call it a day.

I won't argue about them being poorly written. Explicitly calling out Mind Rape and Programmed Amnesia is probably the best course of action, since it'll prevent odd, unforeseen, interactions.


Sorry, but to put some sense of balance I can't let you make infinite Stargates. :smalltongue: And clause added, now only creatures and objects they carry may move through the portal.

Darn it, now how am I supposed to fight the goa'uld?



Hmmm, well it counts as Deeper Darkness, and yes, I do think that the Starwalker should get her extra mana. And range increased to 100'/ level.

Excellent.



Gonna go fix a few of those things... and I didn't even think of the ally thing as an option. XD The helpless part is removed completely, the pinned part is now "Cannot carry out a move action", and the radius effect has been lowered to 20'. And with that, I think I'm making it a /encounter ability. Sound good? ((Also, it's closer to a refluffed Implosion ability, since the target's items are destroyed as well and it's a save or die instead of save or take a buttload of damage to the butt))

Much better. I definitely like this version, particularly how it can be used by a tanky character to hold a priority target in place without completely incapacitating them. It may just be that I've watched too much YuYu Hakusho, but the idea of two really tough characters standing noes to noes and beating on each other seems iconic to me. That said, I'm a bit worried about the "drops everything" clause in staggered, particularly because there's a decent chance that it means an enemy now gets to take their weapon and beat them over the head with it.


Funny thing about the void arrows and stuff... while I made it possible for you to empower your fire (by a lot), I was planning to give your Void arrows a buff and switch things around a little bit in the Pathfinder Archetypes section (The Archetype would be called the Void Cultist... based more around cold and suffocation than it would be fire. It will have three Aegis that replace the Dazzling/ Starfire/ Moonfyre chain, and Nova and Star Arrows are going to be replaced). For 3.5, however, this is something that players will have to consider when selecting Aegis to use/ focus in, since fire is such a common resistance and they won't really be able to get around that until level 20.

That is an interesting idea (and 3.5 also has acfs), but I was thinking more in terms of play-style, rather than aegis choice. If you're going archery, you're probably going to want to use both of your arrows, but you only really have a way to buff one of them (regardless of which aegis set you go with).



Well, don't tell anyone I said this, but... this is also a planned class Archetype (the Starblade). More Melee focused, with a set of Aegis that replace the typical blink Aegis. Also, a d8 hit die, to match the combat style shift.

Very cool, I'll be looking forward to seeing it. That said, I will point out that the positioning ability granted by blink is one of the main things that would attack a melee class, because out side of that (and other homebrews) the only ways to move and get a full attack are pounce and Telflammar Shadowlord and neither of those are really convenient for most classes to get.



Well, besides the mana scaling... I actually have feats in place that continue the progression of your Starwalker levels when you take caster levels, and vice versa. I guess I could add in an all-purpose scaling feat, but... I sort of ran out of room in the main post... ^^; Time to trim down the fluff, I suppose...
Yup. I noticed those. The problem with increasing your caps without increasing your mana is that you can't actually benifit from those higher caps and that's the main way the abilities scale. It's also not to useful for melee multi-classes. One of the most obvious combos I can see is a melee type taking 5 levels for blink, consume, increased speed, shell. 5 levels seems like a fairly decent investment (about the same as a full PrC), but 10 total mana probably isn't going to keep more than one of those abilities relevant at upper levels.



Heck, the Multi-shot feat and a speed bow or the spell haste will cover all of the arrows... and beyond the normal archer stuff being full of archer things and the Master of Arrows feat... there isn't much to add to being a ranged fighter.

This is unfortunately true.


Before the edits to them, I felt like they were too strong to be /encounter... now I'm hoping that they aren't too strong anymore, and that /encounter will work.

The were definitely too strong before, but I think they're getting there now. Per encounter is definitely a good power scale to shoot for.

Gnomes2169
2014-07-05, 12:51 AM
Swift action dispels, that's both unusual and rather powerful. That said, I think, with the other thing you've also put on swift, there should be enough competition for your swifts that it's ok.

Also, it might be worth noting that it's not so much that I like swifts as it is I like every action type getting used and having competition for it's use. I think it's less fun if you either do the same thing with an action every round or you can't do anything with that action at all. I keep mentioning swifts because there are a lot of classes that can't really touch them, unlike the starwalker.
Ah, a mixup might be had here... the swift action is what the Starwalker has to spend to apply mana gained from this ability, the dispell itself is still a Standard. (So if successful, it take up a standard and a swift to remove a spell and benefit from it.)


Looks good, but there are two minor problems. Overland flight isn't a defined type of flight. It's just a spell with a lower speed and longer duration then normal flight. Similarly, overland speed isn't and actual speed. It's just land speed.
Fixed, and I just removed the 6 mana enhancement. Also, Land Speed is also referred to as a creature's base speed, and since I refer to it as "base speed" earlier/ in other abilities, I think I'll keep it that way...


Right. I missed that the when I read it. Sorry.

In that case, they can reasonably get 45d6+45 damage per round from star arrows alone. Then, they'd get another 24d6+24 damage from void arrows for a total of 69d6+69 damage. That has a mean of 310. (http://anydice.com/program/3fb4)

For reference, the most hp a cr 15 monster will have is 312. So, that might need to get fixed.
Remember that after ~level 7, every monster or wizard/ cleric/ any caster you run into will likely have resistance if not flat-out immunity either cold or fire damage... and that it's only 310 damage to one creature if all six arrows target/ can hit/ land/ are not saved against by the same creature. Star arrows being a touch attack helps with their accuracy, but to get all 6 arrows without Splitting cheese, you need to take a -6 penalty to your attack bonus from rapid shot, and that is a rather hefty attack bonus penalty for a 3/4 BAB class. So assuming 1 miss (either from good touch AC or bad rolls) and 2 saves, the damage output from Star arrows drops down to 30d6+30 (if the target is not immune) and Void arrows are dropped to 16d6+16 (Again, if the target is not just flat out immune, and the target does not have evasion). Since it's level 15, we can safely assume that the target will be immune to one or the other (See, Undead. Undead everywhere at CR 15. And white dragons. And other cold dragons. And fire dragons. And fire elementals. And...), or that they will have ER 30 to one or both. Especially if the DM has been playing with this class in the party for a while. :smalltongue: So while still a good chunk of damage, it does rely on the target having bad AC, bad ref and no resistances.

That being said, when you run into vulnerable enemies that is still a lot of damage, and the Starfire Aegis's +3 per die by level 18 just throws it over the top. Which is why I'm making the Starfire Aegis just +1 per die, with no scaling.



Both versions seem reasonable. I suspect that it's something that will take play testing to really figure out. Having a few more offensive abilities that can be used more then once per encounter is probably a good thing. If it turns out to still be too powerful, a clause about averting your eyes or wearing eye protection could be added to the blindness.
Good ideas, once again.


Yeah, I can easily see how it's useful if it apples to multiple abilities; I just miss read it the first time. I sorta want to say that the text should be clarified, but I'm not sure how that should be done and it might have just been me derping anyways.
No... no I'll take the fault on that one, because I derped the hell out of the wording on Manaweaver the first time. :smalltongue:


That seems more reasonable, since you have some pretty good competition for your swifts now and it's doing nonlethal damage.
Yeah, and the fact that you are forced to stay adjacent to the effect is another thing that would make some characters hesitant to use it, since that means that your squishy behind has to be close-ish to the enemy.


Ok. That works, though you might want to expand it to include places she can currently see and/or has studied pictures of.
Naw, I think I'll reserve that for the stargate. :smalltongue: Riftwalk will be more for plane shifting and revisiting things.


Two things. First, without a duration, the swift action to activate isn't actually a limitation. It's nice to know, so you have an explicit on/off switch, but it's not actually competing for swifts and the action type doesn't matter too much. Second, with the hide clause in place, this is basically a drastically improved version of hide in plain sight (both because it gives your concealment regardless of hiding and because it also works for your allies). In the SRD, the only ways to get HPS are taking ranger to 17 or levels in Assassin or Shadow Dancer. The core classes might be a bit overly stingy with HPS, but automatically granting an improved version at 13 might be a bit too much. Maybe make it something they can buy for a good number of points?
But the ability to use it as actual cover you could hide behind was your idea... >.> Ah well, I'll just remove that bit and get some more room for that mana from other class levels thing.


In the 20ft zone, stagard prevents full round actions, so if you fail your save you actually can't move. Even if you were to make an exception for that, there's basically no difference between the effects of failing and succeeding (you can move 10 extra feet, but that's not a lot). I am also somewhat worried about having 145ft wide circle that you can't shoot through.

Overall, I think this still might be a bit too powerful, but it's definitely getting there.
Remember the golden rule of D&D... no, not "be a wizard". The other, other golden rule. Archery sucks. Likely, the only creature in the battle that is using ranged attacks will be the Starwalker, so it's more of a nerf to your own attacks than it is a problem for enemies (since you can't actually pick your targets without careful positioning, the arrows just go straight to the center. After all, the character is immune to the effect... but the character's abilities are not the character themselves).

And the full round action thing is supposed to be a special exception, but I could just remove that easy enough. Also, here's a change to a successful save: "A creature that succeeds on its save cannot make a full attack or other full round action, and has their move speed reduced by 10'". Oh, and the range is not 145'... it's 75'. It also reaches 70' into the air, but that is actually a shorter radius than the rest of the ability. :smalltongue:

Seem a bit better?


Neither do I, but I'd start by making shred a standard action. It's a bit to powerful as a swift, particularly since it's an at will save or die against undead (although, animate undead isn't actually an enchantment spell, so you might need to update the example).

I won't argue about them being poorly written. Explicitly calling out Mind Rape and Programmed Amnesia is probably the best course of action, since it'll prevent odd, unforeseen, interactions.
It is a standard action. :smalltongue: And isn't Animate Dead a necromancy spell with a duration of Permanent?


Darn it, now how am I supposed to fight the goa'uld?
In your dreams, young padawan. In your dreams.


Much better. I definitely like this version, particularly how it can be used by a tanky character to hold a priority target in place without completely incapacitating them. It may just be that I've watched too much YuYu Hakusho, but the idea of two really tough characters standing noes to noes and beating on each other seems iconic to me. That said, I'm a bit worried about the "drops everything" clause in staggered, particularly because there's a decent chance that it means an enemy now gets to take their weapon and beat them over the head with it.
I don't think there is a drop everything clause in the ability? I mean, it drops all the creatures and objects in a pile, but that's the ability itself, not the creatures being forced to drop everything they are carrying.


That is an interesting idea (and 3.5 also has acfs), but I was thinking more in terms of play-style, rather than aegis choice. If you're going archery, you're probably going to want to use both of your arrows, but you only really have a way to buff one of them (regardless of which aegis set you go with).
Indeed, and that's part of the balancing... which goes away in epic levels. Because Aegis of Destruction lol, but anyway... It's just deciding to focus on one energy type over another. Specialization, if you will. You will still be good at both types of damage, it's just that you will be better with one than the other.


Very cool, I'll be looking forward to seeing it. That said, I will point out that the positioning ability granted by blink is one of the main things that would attack a melee class, because out side of that (and other homebrews) the only ways to move and get a full attack are pounce and Telflammar Shadowlord and neither of those are really convenient for most classes to get.
Oh, don't worry. The Starblade's Aegis selection will complement high-mobility and swift attack playstyle rather nicely, methinks...


Yup. I noticed those. The problem with increasing your caps without increasing your mana is that you can't actually benifit from those higher caps and that's the main way the abilities scale. It's also not to useful for melee multi-classes. One of the most obvious combos I can see is a melee type taking 5 levels for blink, consume, increased speed, shell. 5 levels seems like a fairly decent investment (about the same as a full PrC), but 10 total mana probably isn't going to keep more than one of those abilities relevant at upper levels.
And this is why I need to add that to the feat that's already there (Mana caster)... at a rate of 1 mana per non-starwalker class level. That should give some multiclassing viability (for casters, at least)... and I would like to point out that if a melee is taking it just for those abilities, that he/ she can take the Vast Aegis to improve how much mana they have to play with. The other two tier 1 Aegis won't matter too much (15 mana=better than 10!).


The were definitely too strong before, but I think they're getting there now. Per encounter is definitely a good power scale to shoot for.
Woohoo, hitting the right scale now! :smallbiggrin:

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-05, 02:13 AM
Ah, a mixup might be had here... the swift action is what the Starwalker has to spend to apply mana gained from this ability, the dispell itself is still a Standard. (So if successful, it take up a standard and a swift to remove a spell and benefit from it.)
I can read. I swear I can!



Fixed, and I just removed the 6 mana enhancement. Also, Land Speed is also referred to as a creature's base speed, and since I refer to it as "base speed" earlier/ in other abilities, I think I'll keep it that way...

Much clearer now.



Remember that after ~level 7, every monster or wizard/ cleric/ any caster you run into will likely have resistance if not flat-out immunity either cold or fire damage... and that it's only 310 damage to one creature if all six arrows target/ can hit/ land/ are not saved against by the same creature. Star arrows being a touch attack helps with their accuracy, but to get all 6 arrows without Splitting cheese, you need to take a -6 penalty to your attack bonus from rapid shot, and that is a rather hefty attack bonus penalty for a 3/4 BAB class. So assuming 1 miss (either from good touch AC or bad rolls) and 2 saves, the damage output from Star arrows drops down to 30d6+30 (if the target is not immune) and Void arrows are dropped to 16d6+16 (Again, if the target is not just flat out immune, and the target does not have evasion). Since it's level 15, we can safely assume that the target will be immune to one or the other (See, Undead. Undead everywhere at CR 15. And white dragons. And other cold dragons. And fire dragons. And fire elementals. And...), or that they will have ER 30 to one or both. Especially if the DM has been playing with this class in the party for a while. :smalltongue: So while still a good chunk of damage, it does rely on the target having bad AC, bad ref and no resistances.

Given how this class works, I don't know if I'd count taking a single weapon enchantment as cheese, even if it is ridiculously powerful. Also, ER is per round, so it'll get burned through quite quickly. That said, I'm willing to chalk this up as another "needs testing" ability. Your argument does make a good amount of sense, but those numbers are still large.


But the ability to use it as actual cover you could hide behind was your idea... >.> Ah well, I'll just remove that bit and get some more room for that mana from other class levels thing.

Oh. Sorry for not being clearer. When I first mentioned it, I was just pointing it out as something that needed to be addressed, with an explicit clause allowing or disallowing cover, not actually suggesting it (without such a clause, it's somewhat open to debate but a strict reading would give your alies the ability to hide whenever they're within 60ft of you and you have it active). You could include it as something you pay extra for, which is why I didn't tell you to ban it outright, but eliminating it is probably the easiest thing.



Remember the golden rule of D&D... no, not "be a wizard". The other, other golden rule. Archery sucks. Likely, the only creature in the battle that is using ranged attacks will be the Starwalker, so it's more of a nerf to your own attacks than it is a problem for enemies (since you can't actually pick your targets without careful positioning, the arrows just go straight to the center. After all, the character is immune to the effect... but the character's abilities are not the character themselves).

And the full round action thing is supposed to be a special exception, but I could just remove that easy enough. Also, here's a change to a successful save: "A creature that succeeds on its save cannot make a full attack or other full round action, and has their move speed reduced by 10'". Oh, and the range is not 145'... it's 75'. It also reaches 70' into the air, but that is actually a shorter radius than the rest of the ability. :smalltongue:
145' is the diameter, since you measure width edge to edge, not center to edge. :smallbiggrin:

More seriously though, I suppose you have a point about ranged projectiles being unusual (hi there wind wall). The inner portion does mess with wizards, but I doubt they care that much. I'm not sure it's a great idea to be ruining the ranger's day even more than normal, but if the outer edges don't effect things like rays, then it's probably not to detrimental to play at that level.


It is a standard action. :smalltongue: And isn't Animate Dead a necromancy spell with a duration of Permanent?

I actually had to check, but it's instantaneous (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm) (otherwise they'd keel over in an AMF).


I don't think there is a drop everything clause in the ability? I mean, it drops all the creatures and objects in a pile, but that's the ability itself, not the creatures being forced to drop everything they are carrying.

It's part of stunned


A stunned creature drops everything held, can’t take actions, takes a -2 penalty to AC, and loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any).


And this is why I need to add that to the feat that's already there (Mana caster)... at a rate of 1 mana per non-starwalker class level. That should give some multiclassing viability (for casters, at least)... and I would like to point out that if a melee is taking it just for those abilities, that he/ she can take the Vast Aegis to improve how much mana they have to play with. The other two tier 1 Aegis won't matter too much (15 mana=better than 10!).
That's a bit mean to melee. There are probably 3 abilities on that list that they really care about (though the optional arrows are probably a nice bonus). Between them, that's 38 mana. Completely filling that, with out them making the right choices, is probably a bit too much, but less then half, with the appropriate aegis, is probably too little. I still think having a generic multi-class feat or defaulting it to multi-class like ToB is the best plan. Counting non-starwalker level as 1/2 a starwalker level would give them a level of 12 and 25 mana (without an aigis), which... I'm actually not sure if it's just right or too much with the aegis. On the one hand, far aegis would actually be pretty attractive for blinking into combat and 25 mana is not enough to completely fill everything. Even with vast, they cant fill everything and have the arrows available as backup, which does seem like a reasonable choice to force. On the other hand, with the vast aegis they would be able to mostly fill the things they care about even before you take consume and nighttime into account.

Gnomes2169
2014-07-05, 11:30 PM
Given how this class works, I don't know if I'd count taking a single weapon enchantment as cheese, even if it is ridiculously powerful. Also, ER is per round, so it'll get burned through quite quickly. That said, I'm willing to chalk this up as another "needs testing" ability. Your argument does make a good amount of sense, but those numbers are still large.
Huh, could have sworn ER was per source, not per round... Ah well, cross that bridge when we get there. Also, I feel it pertinent that I point out that a level 7 Warblade in a game I am part of was hitting 179 damage/ round... not even all that optimized. Just dual-wielding elven court blades. :smalltongue:


Oh. Sorry for not being clearer. When I first mentioned it, I was just pointing it out as something that needed to be addressed, with an explicit clause allowing or disallowing cover, not actually suggesting it (without such a clause, it's somewhat open to debate but a strict reading would give your alies the ability to hide whenever they're within 60ft of you and you have it active). You could include it as something you pay extra for, which is why I didn't tell you to ban it outright, but eliminating it is probably the easiest thing.
Then I will specifically disallow it... and I don't think that I will add the augment to let it do so, since I think there are enough ways to spend mana already.


145' is the diameter, since you measure width edge to edge, not center to edge. :smallbiggrin:

More seriously though, I suppose you have a point about ranged projectiles being unusual (hi there wind wall). The inner portion does mess with wizards, but I doubt they care that much. I'm not sure it's a great idea to be ruining the ranger's day even more than normal, but if the outer edges don't effect things like rays, then it's probably not to detrimental to play at that level.
Shush, I can math. :smalltongue:

And people still play rangers in 3.P and they aren't gluttons for punishment? O.o What dark sorcery is this?


I actually had to check, but it's instantaneous (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/animateDead.htm) (otherwise they'd keel over in an AMF).
Then I suppose I will have to call out that chain specifically as well...


It's part of stunned
... Ah. Well, remember that if the target is a caster, they likely won't have a weapon to drop... Hard to beat people to death with their own fisticuffs, you know. :smalltongue:


That's a bit mean to melee. There are probably 3 abilities on that list that they really care about (though the optional arrows are probably a nice bonus). Between them, that's 38 mana. Completely filling that, with out them making the right choices, is probably a bit too much, but less then half, with the appropriate aegis, is probably too little. I still think having a generic multi-class feat or defaulting it to multi-class like ToB is the best plan. Counting non-starwalker level as 1/2 a starwalker level would give them a level of 12 and 25 mana (without an aigis), which... I'm actually not sure if it's just right or too much with the aegis. On the one hand, far aegis would actually be pretty attractive for blinking into combat and 25 mana is not enough to completely fill everything. Even with vast, they cant fill everything and have the arrows available as backup, which does seem like a reasonable choice to force. On the other hand, with the vast aegis they would be able to mostly fill the things they care about even before you take consume and nighttime into account.
Hmmmm, fair enough... I suppose I could add the feat. After I migrate the feats to the second post. After that, I think I will wait for the second page to pop up, and start posting archetypes on my first post there. Aka ACF's for 3.5. Since really, Archetypes are just a group of similarly-fluffed ACF's...

Oh. I should probably make items too. I can do that tonight. :smalltongue:

Epsilon Rose
2014-07-06, 12:40 AM
Huh, could have sworn ER was per source, not per round... Ah well, cross that bridge when we get there. Also, I feel it pertinent that I point out that a level 7 Warblade in a game I am part of was hitting 179 damage/ round... not even all that optimized. Just dual-wielding elven court blades. :smalltongue:

You can blame WotC for that. There are multiple versions. They're all called the exact same thing.

Also, how does dual wielding and ToB work out? I thought all of their attacks were standards and dual wielding only works on full attacks?

... Wait, does this mean the class is basically properly balanced at this point, baring testing? :smalleek:

After you finish your ACFs and feats, you might want to check out the Peach Exchange (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?263949-PEACH-Exchange&highlight=peach+exchange) and see if you can get someone other than me to look over everything.

Gnomes2169
2014-07-06, 10:26 AM
Class ACF's/ Archetypes

And here are the class archetypes! It really is time to get to work on these, and I figure that I should start with the largest game changer for the class. Also note, I will be giving each archetype a feat or five that fits the archetype specifically... Yes, this is a bit strange. No, I do not mind the extra work. :smalltongue:

The Starblade
While this is technically its own stand-alone archetype, the Starblade is enough of a class conversion that I'm going to say that other archetypes may be combined freely with it. Yes, even archetypes that modify the same class features. Notes on how to combine the Starblade with other archetypes will be given under each specific modification.

The Starblade is a special kind of Starwalker who, despite having incredibly similar abilities to the normal members of her organization, fits a niche all of her own. Where thers might rely on their ranged capabilities and staying out of the front lines to keep them alive, the Starblade wades into the thick of combat, relying on her incredible mobility and hit-and-run tactics to take down enemies both quickly and efficiently.

Archetype features:

Hit dice: d8
-This changes the d6 HD that the Starwalker normally possesses.

Proficiencies: The Starblade gains proficiency with medium armor and with all shields besides tower shields, but loses her proficiency with martial bows.

Battle Aegis (Ex): Hardened and trained for the idea of war, the Starblade knows how to temporarily infuse her weapons with her mystical energies, and those with this Aegis know how to apply this same concept to all of their abilities, not just their Void and Star powers. As a swift action, the Starblade may infuse any ability she has spent mana on this day into one of her melee weapons, activating and applying it on the next hit made with that weapon. After the weapon strikes, this charge disappears and a new charge of the ability must be applied. Only one ability can be infused on a weapon at a time, and if the Starblade reassigns the mana she spent on the infused ability, her weapon will no longer be infused with the ability. Additionally, the Starwalker gains the feats Two Weapon Fighting and Weapon Finesse as a bonus feat, even if she does not otherwise qualify for them. This Aegis manifests itself as an aurora glow around the Starblade's weapons, glimmering and dazzling as it moves.
-This ability replaces the Far Aegis (Under Aegis of the Moon)
Any ability that would replace the Far Aegis replaces the Battle Aegis instead. Abilities that have a cooldown or are 1/ encounter may only be infused on one weapon, and are not set on cooldown or considered spent for the encounter/ day if applied to a creature the first time they are used this way in a future encounter. The second time a charge is used in any particular encounter, the ability is spent as normal. 1/ day or longer abilities may not be infused. (Effectively, this gives the Starblade 2/encounter abilities and removes cooldowns on things like Nova for the first use)

Void Slash (Su): 1 mana (Maximum 15) With a powerful downward swing of her weapon, the Starblade can release a line of darkness that rips the heat from her foes. Starting at level 1 as a standard action, the Starblade may infuse her weapon with a Void Slash, allowing her to increase the damage of any attack made with the weapon. After making an attack roll with the infused weapon, the Starwalker may choose to spend the infused charge, releasing either a 60' line of energy that deals 1d6+1 cold damage (reflex save for half). If the attack roll is made against a creature and it scores a successful hit, weapon damage is dealt as normal in addition to this energy damage. If the Starblade carries out a full attack, she may add this damage to any one attack she makes during that attack.

Every 2 additional mana spent on this ability increases the cold damage by an additional 1d6+1, to a maximum of 8d6+8 cold damage at 15 mana. For every 7 additional mana spent, the Starwalker may infuse an additional attack in her full attack.
-This ability replaces the Starwalker's Void Arrow ability
Any ability that would replace the Star Walker's Void Arrows are converted into their own variety of slash (changing the damage type and any possible rider effects).

Star Slash (Su): 1 mana (Maximum 15) With a sideways slash of her weapon, the Starblade can release a wave of flames that burns at her foes. Starting at level 1 as a standard action, the Starblade may infuse her weapon with a Star Slash, allowing her to increase the damage of any attack made with the weapon. After making an attack roll with the infused weapon, the Starwalker may choose to spend the infused charge, releasing either a 20' cone of energy that deals 1d6+1 fire damage (reflex save for half). If the attack roll is made against a creature and it scores a successful hit, weapon damage is dealt as normal in addition to this energy damage. If the Starblade carries out a full attack, she may add this damage to any one attack she makes during that attack.

Every 2 additional mana spent on this ability increases the fire damage by an additional 1d6+1, to a maximum of 8d6+8 fire damage at 15 mana. For every 7 additional mana spent, the Starwalker may infuse an additional attack in her full attack.
-This ability replaces the Starwalker's Star Arrow ability
Any ability that would replace the Star Walker's Star Arrows are converted into their own variety of slash (changing the damage type and any possible rider effects).

Nova (Su): The range of this ability and its associated touch attacks are removed. Instead, it becomes a 35' burst centered on the Starblade (The Starblade is immune to her own Nova). If infused on a weapon as per the Battle Aegis, the burst is instead centered on the target struck by her weapon.
Any ability that replaces the Nova ability loses any range it might have, and becomes centered on the Starblade. She is immune to any negative effects from her own Nova.

Assault Aegis (Ex): Mobility and speed go hand in hand, and the Starblade has mastered how to use her innate ability to teleport as a burst of deadly speed. Upon selection of this Aegis, the Starblade doubles the range of her blink ability, decreases the cost of her Blink ability by 2, and reduces the cooldown to 1d2 rounds. When she uses Blink, the Starblade may make a full attack, and is treated as if she had just finished a charge for purposes of attack bonus and armor class penalty. Attacks from this Aegis may not be replaced or infused by the Starblade's Void Slash or Star Blade abilities. Finally, the Starblade's armor takes on the same hew as her blades, glowing a strange cobalt when the light hits it just right (even if the armor is light and has no metal to it). The Starblade must have the Battle Aegis to select this Aegis.
-This Aegis replaces the Riftwalker Aegis, and may be chosen once the Starblade gains access to her second tier Aegis.
Any ability that would replace the Riftwalker Aegis also replaces the Assault Aegis.

Vacuum (Su): The Starblade must center the vacuum on herself, and the vacuum instead becomes an aura-like effect that follows her as she moves. If she infuses this on a weapon as per the Battle Aegis, then the next creature struck by this weapon will apply the vacuum, and the damaged creature will become the center of the effect (Which will move and follow them).
Any ability that replaces the Vacuum ability loses any range it might have, and becomes centered on the Starblade. She is immune to any negative effects from her own vacuum/ vacuum replacement.

Gravity Well (Su): The Epicenter of the Gravity Well must be initially placed on the Starblade, who may then move freely as per normal. The Epicenter does not move with her. If infused on a weapon as per the Battle Aegis, the creature struck is subjected to the effects of the Gravity Well's Epicenter, and the Epicenter is placed in the space that they occupy.
Any ability that replaces the Gravity Well ability loses any range it might have, and becomes centered on the Starblade. She is immune to any negative effects from her own (and other's) Gravity Well.

Bladedancer Aegis (Su): The battle field is a dance, ebbing and flowing between combatants locked in its lethal tides to the bitter end, and the Starblade is the master of this deadly waltz. Upon selection of this Aegis the Starblade automatically gains one more attack with each weapon she has equipped at their full BAB. These attacks stack with extra attacks granted by the spell haste, the speed weapon enhancement or any similar effects, and they may be carried out even on a standard attack action. Additionally, the cooldown and cost of Blink are both reduced to 0, and the Starblade may infuse all melee weapons she is currently carrying on her person with one class ability by concentrating for one minute. Upon a successful hit with each infused weapon, the Starblade applies the infused effect to the target (Maximum 1 effect other than Void Slash or Star Blade per target). If mana is reassigned from any ability infusing a weapon, that weapon loses its charge and becomes normal again. The Starblade may infuse any ability that she has purchased for the day on her weapons, and she does not need to chose the same ability for each weapon, allowing her to mix and mash which weapon applies what. Finally, this Aegis gives the Strblade a more powerful, almost radiant aura of cobalt light that shimmers in the air around her. The Starblade must have the Assault Aegis to select this Aegis.
-This Aegis replaces the Stardancer Aegis, and may be chosen once the Starblade gains access to her third tier Aegis.
Any ability that would replace the Stardancer Aegis also replaces the Bladedancer Aegis. As a note, any /encounter ability infused by this Aegis is considered spent until every weapon it is infused on has its charge expended, and abilities that have a cooldown (such as Solar Flare and Nova) have this cooldown rolled at the beginning of combat until all infused weapons have expended the infused ability. Abilities that are /day or longer may not be infused.

Feats

Whirling blade
Requirements: Assault Aegis, Improved two weapon Fighting
Effect: Whenever the Starblade makes a charge using Blink as per the Assault Aegis, she may use Blink twice, spreading any attacks she might make over creatures at both ends of her destination as she chooses. The distance covered by this second blink may not exceed three times her normal movement speed, and using blink and the Assault Aegis in this manner increases the cooldown on her Blink ability by 1.

Unstoppable Aegis
Requirements: Starblade level 24, Blade Dancer Aegis
Effect: Realizing the ultimate unstoppable blade fury of her Aegis, the Starblade becomes little more than a silver blur of steel and astral fury on the battlefield. Upon selection of this Aegis, the Starblade may perform two double attacks when she uses Blink as per the Assault Aegis, infusing all attacks from both with her choice of either Void Slashes or Star Slashes. Additionally, she doubles the range of Blink, may teleport through solid matter (even if she cannot see her end destination) and may even teleport into an occupied space, pushing any creature at the space 5' as if she had performed a successful Bull Rush maneuver. Finally, the Sarblade becomes immune to the effects of slow, stun, daze, holding spells, the spell Maze or any other spell or condition that would reduce her movement speed or attack bonus/ the number of attacks she may perform in a round. Upon selection of this Aegis, the Starblade gives off an aura of raw power that, while not visible, can still be felt by coming too close.

Gnomes2169
2014-07-06, 10:27 AM
Reserved for ACFs. Hopefully this should be the only one needed.

Gnomes2169
2014-07-06, 10:28 AM
Also reserved, just in case things go horribly, horribly wrong. :smalltongue:

Morcleon
2014-07-17, 11:07 PM
Skill points: 6+int ((6+int)x4 at level 1 in 3.5)
Class skills: (3.5) Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape artist (Dex), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Knowledge (geography) (Int), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Move silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha)

Nothing particularly out of place here. I might add in listen/spot since it's supposed to be a ranged class and all.

Properly capitalize "Escape Artist" and "Move Silently".


(Pathfinder) Acrobatics (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape artist (Dex), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Knowledge (geography) (Int), Knowledge (planes) (Int), Profession (Wis), Stealth (Dex), Swim (Str), Use Magic Device (Cha)

Same as 3.5 skills, but perception.

Properly capitalize "Escape Artist".


Mana Reserve (Ex): The Starwalker is a channel for mystic energies, and because of this they have access to a mystical pool of energy called Mana. They may employ this Mana in a myriad of ways, and it powers every active ability that the Starwalker possesses. Mana in this pool is spent outside of combat on the Starblade's class abilities, giving her access to these abilities throughout the day. The Starwalker may spend up to her level in Mana on any one ability whenever she assigns Mana, and most abilities have their own Mana caps that may not be exceeded. She gains 2 points of Mana for every level of Starwalker she possesses, and may reassign where she spends this Mana by meditating for 1 hour during the night. Save DCs for all abilities that draw from this pool are 10+1/2 Starwalker level+Mana spent (maximum 10) unless stated otherwise.

This is basically incarnum, but under a different name and with different reassignment rules, caps, and saves. :smalltongue:

You'll need to give a definition of night for when adventurers aren't on the Prime Material. Also, for when they aren't in places where the sun is visible, maybe give them a minor ability where they always know how long until night starts/ends?


Aegis of the Moon (Ex): With the blessing of the stars beginning to manifest, the Starwalker begins her long journey. At level 1 she gains Darkvision if she did not have it before, and she gains a marking that will be with her always; an Aegis that grants her extra powers, and a symbol that will grow with her during her adventures. She can choose from one of three Aegis to be marked with:

Darkvision needs a range. Standard is generally 60', although you might want to make it a bit more. Also, you might want to add in a bit where the character's existing Darkvision range increases, if they already have it.


-Dazzling: The night sky has always been full of wonder, but when that wonder swirls and moves, well... that's a bit disconcerting. This Aegis manifests itself as a pendant of shimmering stars, and increases the save DC's of all of the Starwalker's abilities by 1. This bonus increases by +1 at level 5 and every 5th level after.

Eh, not too bad, although it has limited use at lower levels.


-Far: Everything in space is distance, and to travel it, one must be both willing and able to reach farther than normal. This Aegis manifests itself as a tabbard, covering the Starblade's shoulders and collar in a material that shimmers like black velvet. With this Aegis, the Starwalker increases the range of all of her abilities by 5'/ level, and gains the feat Point Blank Shot. Additionally, the Starwalker increases the save DC of her Void Arrows by +1.

Point Blank Shot... really is kinda the antithesis of "Far". It's a feat that makes you better at not-far ranges. :smalltongue:

Maybe give them Far Shot instead?


-Vast: Large is the Void, and so too are the Starwalker's reserves. This Aegis manifests itself as a black lining at the edge of the Starwalker's clothing. With this Aegis, the starwalker increases her mana reserves by an extra point each level, bringing the total Mana pool to 3/level. This bonus Mana stacks with Mana from sources such as feats or favored class bonuses.

Eh, pretty good, especially for higher levels.

Properly capitalize "Starwalker".


Void Arrows (Su): 1 Mana (Maximum 15) Channeling the depths of the far realms for a fraction of a second, the Starwalker creates a crack in the world that slices through anything in its path, chilling it to the bone...and beyond. Starting at level 1, the Starwalker may launch a line attack as an at-will standard action. This attack has a range of 60', and deals 1d6+1 cold damage to all creatures along it. The Starwalker has the option to launch this arrow from her bow or crossbow. If she does so, then she may increase the save DC by her bow's enhancement bonus, and she may replace the first attack of any full attack with a Void arrow*.

A Starwalker may increase a Void arrow's damage by 1d6+1 cold damage for every 2 additional Mana spent (to a maximum of 8d6+8 cold damage), and may replace an additional arrow in a full attack for every 7 additional Mana spent (To a maximum of 3 Void Arrows per full attack).

*Just a note, both Void and Star arrows may be used to replace the arrows used in the same full attack, though each one must replace a separate attack. Also note, arrows made by the splitting weapon enhancement do not double a Void or Star arrow, and makes a normal arrow that can be replaced or fired as usual.

Ex: The Starwalker has 8 mana in both Void and Star arrows, meaning that she may replace any 2 arrows in her full attack with Void arrows, and any 2 arrows in her full attack with Star arrows. For the sake of simplicity, let's say that she normally fires 4 arrows a round, so normally this would be exactly enough to replace every arrow she can fire. However, she also has the splitting weapon enhancement, which gives her 4 additional arrows per full attack. These arrows can be replaced or left alone, but they are not automatically Void or Star arrows. Even if they are paired with a special arrow they must still target the same creature (as per the splitting enhancement rules).

Instead of saying "range of 60'", just make it a 60' line.

Also, I would highly recommend not using an example that references something that you haven't reached yet.


Mana Generation (Ex): The Starwalker is a patron of the night, and during this time her powers come to her more potently. At level 2, during dusk and the night, the Starwalker increases her Mana pool by 1 Mana/ 2 Starwalker levels. This Mana must be spent on enhancing abilities she has already purchased as a full round action, and cannot increase the cost of any one ability to more than her Starwalker level. This Mana disappears at dawn.

An interesting if likely not particularly used option.


Force Shell (Su): 0 Mana (Maximum 11) Starting at level 2, the Starwalker may spend a swift action to create a shield of gravitational force around herself. This shield grants her a +2 deflection bonus to her AC and lasts for 1 minute. This ability may be used once per encounter.

The Starwalker may spend 1 additional Mana to increase the deflection bonus by +1 (to a maximum of +13 AC) and increase the duration by 1 minute for every additional point of Mana spent.

Technically, this ability does not need to be purchased. However, spending Mana to improve it will make the ability far more worthwhile in the long run.

This is a rather powerful defense and scales very fast... at level 11, this basically becomes a constant +13 deflection to AC each combat. Maybe decrease the maximum bonus to +6, and make it for each 2 mana you get +1?


Consume Magic (Su): While often the Starwalker will rely on her natural powers and drawing her energies from the essence of the far realms, there are times when these energies begin to run out. In a pinch, the Starwalker may turn to... less pure sources of power, and she can attempt to consume ongoing magical effects for their raw energies. Starting at level 3, the Starwalker may make an attempt to consume any spell with a duration of 1 round or longer. As a standard action, she makes a dispell check with a caster level equal to her class level against the spell. If successful, the spell is immediately ended and the Starwalker gains temporary Mana equal to the spell's level.

This ability may also target an item with an enhancement bonus, or any wand, rod or item with spell charges. If successful, the item will lose its enhancement bonus for 1 hour, or lose one of its charges* and be suppressed for a day. The Starwalker gains Mana equal to the item's enhancement level/ the level of the charge consumed. A suppressed wand/ charge item cannot be used and it cannot be targeted by Consume Magic until the suppression is finished. Attended magic items are allowed a will save (DC 10+Starwalker level), using their owner's save bonus.

The target spell/ item must be within 60' of the Starwalker, she must be able to identify that the item is magic, and she must have a clear line of effect to the target. Mana gained from this ability must be spent on enhancing the Starwalker's abilities immediately as a swift action, and disappears at the end of the encounter.

*On a limited charge item, the charge lost is consumed permanently. On a charge per day/ week/ year/ etc item, the charge is only lost until it is given time to recharge.

This is basically an improved version of greater dispel magic. You might want to move this so it's obtained later on.


Improved Speed (Ex): 0 Mana (Maximum 13) At level 3 the Starwalker's base movement increases by +10ft. This bonus increases by another +10ft at level 13.

The Starwalker may also spend mana to augment her movement types. For 3 Mana, she may walk up/ along walls at her move speed as part of a move, charge or run action, though she must end her movement on the floor as normal. For 9 Mana, she gains a flight speed with perfect maneuverability equal to her base movement speed.

Additionally, she may augment her base overland speed, increasing the bonus movement speed from this ability by +5 for every 2 mana spent on this augment alone (This does not stack with mana spent to grant different movement types).

Speed boost. Pretty good. Not much to say here.


Star Arrows (Su): 1 Mana (Maximum 15) Focusing the flames of the stars into a true shape, the Starwalker is able to launch arrows of starfire at her foes. At level 4 as an at-will standard action, the Starwalker makes a ranged touch attack against one target up to 100' away, dealing 1d6+1 fire damage to the target if she hits. Whenever she takes a full attack action with a bow, she may replace one of her normal arrows with a star arrow, and she increases the ability's range by her bow's range increments.

The Starwalker may increase the cost to increase the damage of each arrow by 1d6+1 for every 1 additional Mana spent (to a maximum of 15d6+15 fire damage), and every 7 additional Mana spent allows her to replace an extra attack whenever she full attacks (to a maximum of 3 star arrows per full attack).

Hm... this applies for Void Arrows as well, but why not let them use special arrows with standard action bow attacks?


Blink (Su): 3 Mana (Maximum 14) Travelers of the astral realms must be able to cross distances quickly, and they must learn how to shift out of harm's way at a moment's notice. At level 5, the Starwalker may teleport up to her base movement speed in any direction as a move action. This teleportation has no chance of failure and ignores anything that prevents line of effect. This ability has a 1d4 round cooldown before it can be used again.

If the Starwalker spends 3 additional Mana she may use Blink as an immediate action to avoid any one spell or attack, and if she spends 4 additional Mana she will double the range of the ability. This second enhancement can be purchased twice, doubling the movement range each time.

So after three extra mana are in, you basically have a 1/1d4 rounds "nope" card? I might reduce the immediate action use to 1/encounter...


Sight of the Stars (Ex): With her mystic connection to the stars and all things physical and ethereal, the Starwalker can feel even the smallest difference in her surroundings and ignore most forms of magical and physical concealment. At level 5, she gains blindsense 30' from herself (this functions as normal blindsense, despite the flavor text). The radius of this blindsense is modified by the Far Aegis.

Eh, blindsense. Pretty useful for Void Arrows, since they're AoEs, but it's fairly short range.


Uncanny Dodge (Ex): At level 6, the Starwalker's senses for detecting the unseen have sharpened to the point where she can avoid even concealed attacks. She gains the class feature Uncanny Dodge as if she was a rogue of the same level.

Eh. It's a thing. Not too bad.


Solar Flare (Su): 4 Mana (Maximum 10) The light of the stars, while seeming to be small and insignificant, are bright enough to light up the night and sky. If brought suddenly closer, this light can be more than a little painful and blinding. At level 6, as an at-will standard action the Starwalker may release an intense flash of light that has a chance to blind her enemies. All creatures with eyes in a 40' cone must make a reflex save or be blinded for 1d3 rounds. On a successful save, they are dazzled for the same duration instead. If undead are struck by this cone, then they are automatically blinded for 2 rounds, and both undead and oozes must make a fortitude save or be dealt 4d6 light damage. Solare Flare has a cooldown of 1d4 rounds after it is used.

If the Starblade spends an additional 3 mana she increases the damage dealt to undead and oozes by +4d6, and if she spends an additional 6 mana she will also manifest the Solar Flare as a 40' burst (centered on herself) instead of as a 40' cone.

By RAW, undead are already immune to the 4d6 light damage. :smalltongue: But it's understandable anyway. :3

And maybe you should make it so that the 40' burst option is "she may also" rather than "she will also", so that they can use it as a cone if they need to.


Nova (Su): 4 mana (Maximum 20) At level 7, the Starwalker may unleash a ball of volatile flames from her hands to blast apart her enemies. As a standard action, the Starwalker may launch a fist-sized ball of flames at a square within 100' of her. The Starwalker rolls a ranged touch attack for all enemies that are along the line between her and the destination, and if she is successful then these enemies are dealt 3d6+3 fire damage. Once it reaches its destination, the ball of flames erupts into a damaging nova, dealing 4d6+4 fire damage to all creatures in a 30' radius*. Creatures in this radius may make a reflex save for half damage. This ability has a 1d4 round cooldown after use.

The Starwalker may increase the cost of this ability, increasing the damage of the radius effect by 1d6+1 fire damage for every 1 additional Mana spent (to a maximum of 20d6+20), and increasing the save DC by +1 for every 2 additional Mana spent beyond 10.

*The radius of the explosion is not affected by the Far Aegis, only the range it can be launched.

Shouldn't it be a reflex save rather than an RTA? Unless it's a guided missile sort of thing...


Aurora Cloak (Ex): Growing into her gift and gaining influence, the Starwalker manifests a robe of lightly pulsing energies that intercept and protect her from harmful influences. Starting at level 8, this energy provides a morale bonus to her saving throws equal to 1/2 her Starwalker level, to a maximum of +10 at level 20.

This is really good... at level 20, their poor save will have a minimum of +16, without any other buffs. I'd definitely reduce this to +5 at level 20 at least...


Astral Ally (Ex): Having traveled long and far, the Starwalker has made a few friends along the way, sometimes they decide to stick around. At level 8, the Starwalker is accompanied by a lantern archon, who's alignment always matches her own (Any potential changes in alignment will also change the lantern archon's spell like abilities, such as Detect Evil and Circle against evil to the appropriately-aligned spells). This lantern archon gains extra 1 extra hit die for every 2 levels that the Starwalker possesses, the damage of its rays increase by +1d3 per bonus hit die (to a maximum of +5d3 damage per ray), and it may fire an extra ray for every 4 bonus hit dice it gains. If the Starwalker uses any of her teleportation abilities, this archon will always reach the destination in a space adjacent to her. Finally, if this archon ever dies, then the Starwalker must wait for a week before a new one will appear and join her.

Eh, not too bad. Maybe dial down on the extra ray rate? Maybe to 1/5 bonus HD?


Bonus Feat: At level 9 the Starwalker may select one of the class feats she qualifies for as a bonus feat, and gains a second bonus feat from the same list at level 16. Once made, these selections may not be changed.

Eh, bonus feat.


Aegis of the Stars (Ex): At level 10 the Starwalker's Aegis improves, removing her need to breathe (if she needed to before), granting her immunity to the negative effects of a Vacuum (if any) and granting her a new tier of powers, allowing her to choose one Aegis from the previous or second tier list that she does not have. The second tier of Aegis are as follows:

Mm... immunity to vacuum is nice. They are a starwalker, after all. :3


-Starfire: Drawing upon the power of all celestial bodies, the flames that the Starwalker employs become far, far more potent than that of any mage. All of the Starwalker's class abilities and spells that deal fire damage deal +1 fire damage on each damage die. Additionally, this ability adds a 5' burst to all of her fire abilities, or increases the existing burst by 5'. This burst does not apply to Nova's line of touch attacks. A reflex save is allowed for creatures in this additional radius, and targets take 1/2 damage on a successful save. The Starwalker must have the Dazzling Aegis to select this Aegis, and it increases the number of stars on her pendant.

Mm... change "deal +1 fire damage" to "deal an extra +1 fire damage". And specify that the added 5' burst is on hit.


-Riftwalker: Traveling for so long has given the Starwalker the experience needed to extend and refine her techniques. Upon selecting this Aegis the range of all teleportation abilities is doubled, and the Starwalker pays 2 less Mana to purchase Riftwalk or activates Wormhole. Finally, the Starwalker does not have to pay an increased cost to use blink as an immediate action, and her cooldown on Blink is reduced to 1 round. The Starwalker must have the Far Aegis to select this Aegis, and upon selection she leaves a trail of black steps that quickly fade away wherever she walks.

Specify "teleportation abilities from her levels in Starwalker", otherwise, you'll have gestalt/theurge/magic item users using this for their stuff. :smalltongue:


-Manaweaver: Having utilized her powers constantly, the Starwalker has learned how to use them more effectively than most. Upon selecting this Aegis, the Starwalker may increase the amount of Mana she can spend on any one ability by 2, allowing her to spend up to her Starwalker level+2 on all of her abilities, and increasing the ability's maximum Mana cost (if any, damage and other effects scale as appropriate). Upon selection of this Aegis, the Starwalker's abilities seem to become more solid, almost as if there is more to them.

Not too bad. Not sure how well it'll scale, but not too bad.


Vacuum (Su): 6 mana (Maximum 16) With a snap of her fingers a a twist of her wrists, the Starwalker may rip all of the air out of an area, sucking it out of even the lungs of living foes. At level 10 the Starwalker may create a 30' vacuum as a standard action. Creatures that have to breathe that are present in this vacuum must make a fortitude save (DC 13+5/round they are present in the vacuum) or be staggered and take 3d6 non-lethal damage each round they are unable to breathe. On a successful save, the creature is only staggered and it does not take any non-lethal damage as it manages to hold its breath. Once a creature begins to choke, they forfeit all future saving throws against the current vacuum effect. The Starwalker must continue touching or remaining in the vacuum and she must sacrifice a swift action every round to continue the effect. The vacuum may persist up to 5 rounds before air rushes back to those inside of the effect.

The radius of Vacuum is modified by the Far Aegis, and a Starblade may create one Vacuum per encounter.

The Starwalker may increase the cost of this ability, adding 1 additional round to the duration for every 2 additional Mana spent.

Specify 30' radius. Also, unless your move speed is less than 30', it's really just a "fort or take 3d6 nonlethal and be inconvenienced for a round". I'd recommend letting the Starwalker move it around as a move action.


Riftwalk (Su): 10 mana At level 11, the Starwalker gains the ability to travel farther than ever before, stretching her abilities to break through the veils of space time. As a full round action, the Starwalker may teleport to any place within 100 miles/ class level without any chance of failure, and she will not land anywhere that would be inherently harmful to her health (though it may not be safe to land within it due to creatures or other non-environmental hazards). If she would teleport into an environmental hazard or similar effect, the Starwalker is instead deposited in the closest safe location. She must have visited this place before she can Riftwalk to it.

Alternatively, this ability may be used to planeshift, as per the spell in the phb, except as noted here. The Starwalker may take up to 8 willing creatures with her when she manifests riftwalk in this way. This form of planeshifting has 7% accuracy per character level (to a maximum of 140%... which a DM can rule just allows her to enter hard-to-reach planes), but even if the Starwalker misses her target she and her traveling companions will not be put into an environmentally dangerous situation unless the entire plane is dangerous or they fall into the wrong plane. If the planeshift misses, there is a 90% chance that the creatures shifted will be 1d1000 miles away from their intended location on the plane, and a 10% chance that they will end up on a random plane.

Activating this ability in combat provokes an attack of opportunity. This ability is not modified by the Far Aegis, and has a 30 minute cooldown.

The teleport ability is nice. But the percent accuracy is a bit of an odd term. Maybe use "7% chance of reaching her intended location".

And you should probably give this either a higher casting time, a daily limit, or both.


Starfire Sigil (Su): Up to 5 (unique) At level 12 the Starwalker learns how to infuse a part of her Mana reserve within her respective Aegis. When a Sigil is created, the Starwalker spends up to 5 Mana infusing it with power and then she lets it sit, waiting to be expended. While a Sigil is active, it is considered to be spent Mana. Multiple Sigils may be active at the same time.

During the manifestation of any of her active class abilities, the Starwalker may activate and spend a stored Sigil as a free action, adding to the cost of the ability until the end of the round. This cost increase can ignore the normal maximum limit of points that can be spent on one ability, allowing her abilities to be used as if they were modified by a Starwalker of higher power (Abilities modified in such a way ignore any damage caps). These points do not count towards the save DCs of her abilities.

Up to 1/4 of the Starwalker's mana reserve may be stored in Sigils, and only one Sigil may be applied per ability. A Sigil may only be used once/ day.

Huh. Interesting... for the last sentence, you should specify that it's "Each Sigil". Unless you mean that you can only create 1/day, in which case, "Only one Sigil may be created per day".


Void Aura (Su): 6 Mana Starting at level 13, the Starwalker may emanate an inky black aura that conceals her from the blades and bows of her enemies, and which wraps around her allies protectively as well. This ability causes all ranged attacks to have a 50% miss chance on her, as if she had total concealment, and a 20% miss chance on all melee attacks made against her, as if she had partial concealment. Allies within 60' of the Starwalker benefit from partial concealment and are granted the 20% miss chance that comes with it. Concealment from this ability may not be used to hide. This ability is not modified by the Far Aegis, and it may be suppressed or activated as a swift action.

Total concealment is really good for what is essentially a constantly on ability, since it means you can't be directly targeted. I'd just keep it at 50% miss chance from ranged. Which is already very powerful, and you may want to increase the mana cost of this ability, or decrease the % miss chance from ranged, or both.


Improved Uncanny Dodge: At level 14 the Starwalker's mystic senses grant her an unparalleled ability to avoid unseen attacks, making it so that only the absolutely most skilled enemies can get the drop on her. She gains the feat Improved Uncanny Dodge as a bonus feat, regardless of whether she would normally qualify.

Improved Uncanny Dodge is not a feat. Say "as the rogue ability of the same name", or something. :smalltongue:


Gravity Well (Su): 12 Mana Once she reaches level 15, the Starwalker's mastery over gravity grants her the ability to create areas of such powerful force that drags foes to the ground. Upon activation, the Starwalker selects one square up to 100' away from herself to be the epicenter of the gravity well. The epicenter must be placed on the ground. Once made, this point cannot be moved and it will persist until the duration runs out. Depending on where a creature is in the gravity well, different effects will apply to it.

A large or smaller creature that is standing in the epicenter of the gravity well must make a Fortitude save each round they are present (DC 20+1/2 Starwalker levels) or fall prone and be staggered until they succeed on the save, while huge or larger creatures must make a save at the same DC or be unable to move farther than 10'. Large or smaller creatures standing in the epicenter cannot use any teleportation effects until they leave it, and may only escape by taking a full round action to move their base land speed -20' (Minimum 5'), or by having an ally outside of the epicenter pull them out, while huge and larger creature may take a full round action to move their full base move speed instead. Line attacks or abilities/ spells with a line of effect are unable to move through the epicenter, and attacks or spells with a radius (such as Fireball) that have their radius in the epicenter only affect the square that is in the epicenter. Ranged attacks and spells that come from the epicenter automatically fail as they are redirected back at the epicenter.

What about spells/powers that wouldn't make sense to be redirected, like Ultrablast?


Creatures standing within 20' of the epicenter must make a fortitude (DC15+1/2 Starwalker level) or be staggered and has their base land speed reduced by -20' (mimimum 10') until they escape or succeed on their saving throw. A creature that succeeds on its save cannot make a full attack or other full round action, and has their move speed reduced by 10'. If a creature is only allowed a move or standard anyway (like mindless undead such as zombies or skeletons), then they may only take a move or standard once every two rounds. If a line attack or spell with a line of effect passes within this radius, it is automatically redirected into the epicenter, where it ends. Projectiles are redirected to the epicenter as well, and they automatically hit any creature that might be in it (minus any str bonus they might have had).

And minus Str bonus? That part needs to be more well defined.


Creatures up to 50' farther out must make a fortitude save (DC10+1/2 Starwalker level) or have their move speed reduced by 10' and be unable to make a full attack or other full round action. If they succeed on their check, their move speed is reduced by 10' and they may move as normal. Projectiles passing through this zone are redirected towards the epicenter, and make attack rolls against every creature that crosses their path until it either successfully hits a creature or it reaches the epicenter, where it automatically hits any creature that may be trapped there (minus any str bonus they might have had).

Specify that "they may otherwise move as normal", or else you're contradicting yourself.


A gravity well lasts 5 rounds and affects creatures normally immune to supernatural effects. The well extends 70' into the air and pulls any flying creature that passes through it down to the ground (applying the appropriate falling damage, no save). The radius of this ability is not affected by the Far Aegis. The Starwalker is immune to both her own gravity well and the gravity wells of other Starwalker.

Once purchased, Gravity Well may be used once per encounter.

How do the above radius effects function on creatures not on the ground? Also, are all the radius effects cumulative?


Shred Magic (Su): Improving her ability to mine and use Mana from sources other than the stars, the Starwalker gains the ability to shred the magical protections and blessings of foes at level 16. Whenever she attempts to consume magic effects, she may make a greater dispell magic check against all current spells on the target creature. Every spell that this ability ends adds their spell level to the Starwalker's current Mana pool, and must be spent on abilities immediately. Mana gained this way only lasts until the end of the encounter.

Additionally, the Starwalker may attempt to remove the effects of a spell with a duration of permanent, the instantaneous spells Mind Rape and Programmed Amnesia and spells or rituals that create undead. Any creature that is under the effects of this magic (or is animated by this magic) may make a will save against this ability (DC 15+1/2 Starwalker level) to keep it from being removed. Creatures such as undead who lose their animating spell are instantly destroyed.

*Yes. Yes I do hate Mind Rape. A lot. Something that changes a person permanently should have a duration of permanent not instantaneous... It's dumb. >_> That would be all.

Programmed Amnesia already has a duration of permanent. And you don't need to specify that permanent spell effect can be removed, since they already have been.


Wormhole (Su): 14 mana At level 17 the Starwalker has perfectly mastered the ability to punch through the barrier of space. As a full round action, the Starwalker may make a stationary portal immediately in front of herself that is 20' in diameter and only visible from one side. This portal leads to a sister portal (also visible only from one side), which can be up to 200 miles/ level from the other end. The destination may be placed in any environment, and up to 300' above the ground. The Starwalker must have visited the location for the destination, or had it described to her in some way. This portal lasts for 10 minutes/ level, and any creature may move through it freely as long as it is open.

While only visible from one side the wormhole can be entered from either direction, and creatures who enter it from behind (and thus unaware) are allowed a will save to keep from being involuntarily teleported. Creatures that successfully make their save are allowed to make a 5' step to escape from the draw of the wormhole. A wormhole may be manifested flat against a surface such as the floor, wall or ceiling, though if manifested in this way then it must be visible. The Starwalker must touch the outer edge of the portal upon its creation. Only one Wormhole may be active at any time, and the Starwalker is unable to close a wormhole prematurely.

Only creatures and objects that they are carrying may pass through a worm hole. So even if one end is below the ocean or in a seething pit of magma, the water and lava will not pour out of them into the destination.

What's with the altitude restriction? No access to flying cities then? :smalltongue:


Eclipse (Su): At level 18, the Starwalker gains the ability to call the night to herself, gaining increased power and ability when she does so. Once per day for up to one minute as a swift action, the Starwalker causes a temporary eclipse. During this time, night falls and the area up to 100'/ level from the Starwalker is treated as if under the effects of magical darkness (as per the spell Deeper Darkness). The Starwalker's vision is unaffected by this darkness, and she can see as far as she could on a perfect morning. Her save DCs are increased by +3, and all of her abilities are treated as if they had the Mana spent on them increased by +2. Her Mana Generation class feature is activated by an eclipse, and the Starwalker may spend mana from this as a free action. Once she leaves the Eclipse or the effect ends, the Starwalker loses this mana. Creatures such as werewolves that transform during a full moon shift fully during this period and cannot change back until the eclipse is either dismissed or it runs out.

If the Starwalker is incapacitated or disabled in any way during this effect, the eclipse comes to an immediate end and does not restart even if she had rounds remaining for the day.

You should just specify that this effect affects the starwalker as if it were nighttime.


Black Hole (Su): 15 mana With perfect mastery over the destructive forces of gravity, the Starwalker can clench her fist to crush one point in space into nothingness. Upon reaching level 19, the Starwalker may target a 5' square within 100' that she has a line of effect to as a full round action. If a creature is standing at this point, it must make a fortitude save or instantly die as its body is reduced to little more than astral dust. The creature's equipment (other than artifacts) if any, is also instantly destroyed. Unattended objects automatically fail this save. On a successful save, the target is instead dealt 10d6 crushing damage and is stunned for one round.

Creatures and objects that are within 20' of the target space must make a fortitude save or be drawn to that square. If more than one creature/ unattended object fails this save, then they will collide with one another, taking 2d6 bludgeoning damage per creature/ unattended object they collide with, and being rendered prone as they are dropped onto the ground in a pile. If a creature was standing in the targeted square and survived the initial effects of the black hole they are subjected to this bludgeoning damage as well, and are unable to take a move action until every other creature moves out of their square. The range of this ability is modified by the Far Aegis, though the radius remains unaffected.

Once purchased, Black Hole may be used 1/ encounter.

Bludgeoning damage, not crushing damage. Also, they should be able to take move actions if piled on, they just shouldn't be able to use it to move normally.


Aegis of Infinity (Ex): Reaching absolute mastery over her Aegis, the Starwalker realizes the full magnitude of her blessing. Finally reaching level 20, the Starwalker no longer ages and she may select a tier 3 Aegis that she qualifies for, or an Aegis of a lower tier that she does not posses yet if she so desires. The Aegis she may select are as follows:

-Moonfyre: The Starwalker's mastery over light and flames progress to the point that they burn beyond heat, and detonate with a fury few can match. Upon selection of this Aegis, the Starwalker's abilities that dealt fire damage now deal Untyped damage instead, and have their radiu of effect increased by an additional 5'. All class abilities that proc off of fire damage will still do so for the abilities this Aegis modifies. Finally, the pendant on the Starwalker's chest glows a pure, unblemished white, bright enough to read by. The Starwalker must have the Starfire Aegis to select this Aegis.

This is decent, I guess. Not nearly as good as the other two. Maybe boost the damage by another +1, and increase the DC and mana caps?


-Stardancer: Having mastered the art of fluid movement, the Starwalker knows how to blink when and where she desires. Upon selection of this Aegis, the cooldown of the Starwalker's Blink is reduced to 0, as is the cost for both the base ability and the immediate action augment. She may manifest Blink once as a free action when she makes a full attack. Her Riftwalk and Wormhole abilities both have their cost decreased by an additional 3. Finally, whenever the Starwalker activates Blink, she may immediately make an extra attack with her Void or Star arrow ability at her highest attack bonus from her end destination. Upon selection of this Aegis, the Starwalker will leave a fleeting shadowy afterimage of herself whenever she moves or teleports. She must have the Riftwalker Aegis to select this Aegis.

The Blink upgrades are really good. The other things are really good too... the extra attack seems a bit overkill though.


-Endless: Becoming ever more stingy with her mana, the Starwalker perfects her refinement process, creating an echo of her abilities. After using an ability she has spent at least 10 mana on this day, she makes a free echo of that ability that manifests and resolves immediately. The echo may be used on a new area or target, and it is manifested as if it had 10 fewer points spent in it. When this Aegis is selected, the Starwalker's body seems to become larger than it is, and her abilities seem to be almost completely solid The Starwalker must have the Manaweaver Aegis to select this Aegis.

What if the effect would not be available if it had 10 less mana in it?


Starfall Cascade (Su): 10 mana (Maximum 20) Raising her hand to the stars, the Starwalker calls down a torrent of the heavens' flames, purging all foes who stand before her. At level 20, the Starwalker can spend a standard action to deal 20d6+20 fire damage to up to 10 target enemies within 100' of them. Targets may make a reflex save for half damage. After this first wave resolves, the Starwalker may select another group of up to 10 targets who are dealt 10d6+10 fire damage, reflex save for half. The same creature (or creatures) may be targeted by both waves, or entirely new targets may be selected, but a creature may only be targeted once per wave. Any creature struck by both waves is blinded for 5 rounds, and loses any alternate sight they may have access to (such as blind sight/ blind sense) for 3 rounds. Finally, any creature damaged by this ability is permanently dazzled until they are healed by a restoration spell or subjected to a regeneration effect. Starfall Cascade may be used once per encounter.

By spending 5 additional Mana, the Starwalker may manifest a third wave that deals 5d6+5 fire damage to 10 targets, ref save for half. By spending 10 additional mana instead, this third wave deals 10d6+10 damage to up to 10 targets, ref save for half. The maximum number of waves per Starfall Cascade is 3.

Are the rider effects no save? Because they need to have saves... and how do the augments function with the "hit by both waves thing"?

Gnomes2169
2014-07-18, 11:52 PM
Nothing particularly out of place here. I might add in listen/spot since it's supposed to be a ranged class and all.

Properly capitalize "Escape Artist" and "Move Silently".


Same as 3.5 skills, but perception.

Properly capitalize "Escape Artist".
Added, fixed, and everything is better. Forever.


This is basically incarnum, but under a different name and with different reassignment rules, caps, and saves. :smalltongue:

You'll need to give a definition of night for when adventurers aren't on the Prime Material. Also, for when they aren't in places where the sun is visible, maybe give them a minor ability where they always know how long until night starts/ends?
I didn't know Incarnum was a thing before this, and you know it. XD

Notes added, and so is the fluff.


Darkvision needs a range. Standard is generally 60', although you might want to make it a bit more. Also, you might want to add in a bit where the character's existing Darkvision range increases, if they already have it.

Noted and added, the range increase is +20' for a critter with Darkvision


Eh, not too bad, although it has limited use at lower levels.

Point Blank Shot... really is kinda the antithesis of "Far". It's a feat that makes you better at not-far ranges. :smalltongue:
Maybe give them Far Shot instead?

Eh, pretty good, especially for higher levels.
All of them are meant to be scaling effects, and more useful later on (with the Vast Aegis, for example, you won't actually be able to spend all that mana until around level 5).

Point Blank shot is there because I hate feat taxes, and wanted to get that one out of the way for a heavily archery-inclined class. :smalltongue: However, far shot does work too... and I don't think it's too powerful to give the Aegis both, to just make it all-around decent at ranged combat.

And yes. Yes Vast is. :smalltongue:


Properly capitalize "Starwalker".
Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh


Instead of saying "range of 60'", just make it a 60' line.


Also, I would highly recommend not using an example that references something that you haven't reached yet.
Relocated to star Arrows.


An interesting if likely not particularly used option.
You might be surprised at how many munchkins will jump at the chance to abuse it. :smalltongue: But yeah, in most parties, adventuring at night is a bad idea...


This is a rather powerful defense and scales very fast... at level 11, this basically becomes a constant +13 deflection to AC each combat. Maybe decrease the maximum bonus to +6, and make it for each 2 mana you get +1?
If you want to spend 11 mana on it and have your offensive or other (more used) defensive capabilities cut down, yes, you can pump your AC with this... however, at later levels you will have so many more things to buy and so much better stuff to spend your mana on that I expect a player only to throw whatever doesn't fit somewhere else into this.


This is basically an improved version of greater dispel magic. You might want to move this so it's obtained later on.
It's also a single target GDM, and at the level you get it, you have a very low chance of actually succeeding against a CR worthy opponent... who is likely able to pump his level for dispell checks, since that's a thing. :smalltongue:


Speed boost. Pretty good. Not much to say here.
Indeed it is.


Hm... this applies for Void Arrows as well, but why not let them use special arrows with standard action bow attacks?

Because standard action bow attacks are only 1/round, and (for void arrows especially) the damage output of only firing one or the other each round is... rather pathetic for a DPS class? If you do not full attack, they are still a standard action and can still be launched from a bow, but with a full attack I like the thought of being able to fire multiple special arrows a round.


So after three extra mana are in, you basically have a 1/1d4 rounds "nope" card? I might reduce the immediate action use to 1/encounter...
4 extra mana, and I will be changing it to targeted and line spells/ effects only.


Eh, blindsense. Pretty useful for Void Arrows, since they're AoEs, but it's fairly short range.
It's got up to 130' range with the Far aegis... which is quite a lot longer than most other alternate sights, unless you go with a dragon or limited version (such as Lifesense). :smalltongue:


Eh. It's a thing. Not too bad.
It's uncanny. *Eyebrow waggle*


By RAW, undead are already immune to the 4d6 light damage. :smalltongue: But it's understandable anyway. :3
Sorry, Radiant damage. There we go. :smalltongue:


And maybe you should make it so that the 40' burst option is "she may also" rather than "she will also", so that they can use it as a cone if they need to.
Done


Shouldn't it be a reflex save rather than an RTA? Unless it's a guided missile sort of thing...
It's now a patriot missile until it explodes. Because that mental image is too funny in my head. :smallbiggrin:


This is really good... at level 20, their poor save will have a minimum of +16, without any other buffs. I'd definitely reduce this to +5 at level 20 at least...
This is actually supposed to be much like a Paladin's Divine Grace ability, but instead of being based off of Cha (which can hit +13 rather easily by or even before level 20) it is based off of level... since, again, this class is supposed to function without a primary casting attribute. As it stands, this comes online at a later time (so as to avoid too much front loading), gives you a smaller bonus than if if you are optomizing a 2 level paladin dip at all and gives more incentive to keep taking levels of the class instead of just dipping for one or two things and then leaving. So I'm happy with it.


Eh, not too bad. Maybe dial down on the extra ray rate? Maybe to 1/5 bonus HD?
Yeah, I think I'll do that.


Eh, bonus feat.
It is bonus.


Mm... immunity to vacuum is nice. They are a starwalker, after all. :3
Indeed.


Mm... change "deal +1 fire damage" to "deal an extra +1 fire damage". And specify that the added 5' burst is on hit.

Specify "teleportation abilities from her levels in Starwalker", otherwise, you'll have gestalt/theurge/magic item users using this for their stuff. :smalltongue:

Not too bad. Not sure how well it'll scale, but not too bad.
Changed, and noted (though that second one is only for Star arrows, as nothing else technically requires a RTA, and the nova's RTA line does not proc this burst).

Actually, if you will note, the fire damage from Starfire also modifies spells/ powers/ etc, which a Starwalker does not have. This level of Aegis is supposed to have modifications for every similar effect (except manaweaver, which just gets to cry itself to sleep. :smalltongue:). Even for the Archetype Aegis (once I make them), this will hold true. So I'll keep that clause in there, thank you much. Besides, you only get this Aegis by level 10 at the earliest... which, for the purposes of dips, would be a massive waste of caster level/ spells per day progression. An item user wouldn't care, I suppose, but they cheat like that. :smalltongue:

I've done a little math... and they scale rather well on Void/ Star arrows, as well as Nova, Force Shell and the move speed buff. Other abilities don't really notice it all that much.


Specify 30' radius. Also, unless your move speed is less than 30', it's really just a "fort or take 3d6 nonlethal and be inconvenienced for a round". I'd recommend letting the Starwalker move it around as a move action.
This is supposed to synergize more with the Far Aegis, since that will increase the radius dramatically even by the time you get it (at level 10, this is an 80' radius... which is a huge area of lingering save or suck). Also, added.


The teleport ability is nice. But the percent accuracy is a bit of an odd term. Maybe use "7% chance of reaching her intended location".

And you should probably give this either a higher casting time, a daily limit, or both.
Eh, accuracy is still pretty clear IMO... after all, it's a hit or miss effect, basically. If you succeed on your accuracy check, you hit your mark and just go their. If you derp and fail, you miss your target and get sent elsewhere. % accuracy pretty much works for that without word bloat.

Starfire Sigils are the only daily limit ability, and a full round action means that this is going to be your only action for the round. Also, the 30 minute cooldown on it means that, even if you escape, if your enemy has Trace Teleport, you aren't going to be getting away a second time...


Huh. Interesting... for the last sentence, you should specify that it's "Each Sigil". Unless you mean that you can only create 1/day, in which case, "Only one Sigil may be created per day".
You can make multiple sigils a day, so specifications are made.


Total concealment is really good for what is essentially a constantly on ability, since it means you can't be directly targeted. I'd just keep it at 50% miss chance from ranged. Which is already very powerful, and you may want to increase the mana cost of this ability, or decrease the % miss chance from ranged, or both.
Hmmmm, good point. But the mana cost is good, so I'll just remove the full concealment clause here...


Improved Uncanny Dodge is not a feat. Say "as the rogue ability of the same name", or something. :smalltongue:
Fixed.


What about spells/powers that wouldn't make sense to be redirected, like Ultrablast?
It's a high-density gravity field that can suck up magic... I'm pretty sure logic went out the window here. Also, it's magical elf games. Silly things happen. :smalltongue:


And minus Str bonus? That part needs to be more well defined.
Expanded to be more well defined.


Specify that "they may otherwise move as normal", or else you're contradicting yourself.
Fixed.


How do the above radius effects function on creatures not on the ground? Also, are all the radius effects cumulative?
Well, let's see here... if a creature flies above the gravity well close enough to be in the field, then it is instantply pulled to the ground. Logically at that point (after applying falling damage as normal), the creature would then be treated as if it started its turn in the zone it fell in, as it is now on the ground and stuck there.

And the ability uses the "most powerful" square a creature occupies to determine what the creature rolls for. For instance, a large giant in the epicenter still has 3 squares worth of creature outside of the epicenter, but rolls for the epicenter penalty only as that is the most powerful psrt of the gravity well the giant is standing in.


Programmed Amnesia already has a duration of permanent. And you don't need to specify that permanent spell effect can be removed, since they already have been.
Shhhhhh... :P


What's with the altitude restriction? No access to flying cities then? :smalltongue:
It's just to prevent terminal velocity schenanigans XD Also, flying cities are totally possible... since the ground of the city counts as ground for the purposes of this ability. :smalltongue:


You should just specify that this effect affects the starwalker as if it were nighttime.
Done, though the mana gained from Mana Generation may be spent as a free action instead of a full round while in an eclipse.


Bludgeoning damage, not crushing damage. Also, they should be able to take move actions if piled on, they just shouldn't be able to use it to move normally.
Fixed, and I think I'll keep the second part, since it's hard to pull off a move action when you have potentially hundreds of pounds of armor laying on your chest and face. Move actions become a bit more difficult when that happens. :smalltongue:


This is decent, I guess. Not nearly as good as the other two. Maybe boost the damage by another +1, and increase the DC and mana caps?
Changed it to increase DC's (by a bunch (+4)) and to double the range of abilities that deal damage. More damage directly just seems like a little... overkill. Especially since that damage is untyped now. :smalltongue:


The Blink upgrades are really good. The other things are really good too... the extra attack seems a bit overkill though.
No kill like overkill... though it was a bit much, so that's gone now.


What if the effect would not be available if it had 10 less mana in it?
Fixed that one, now it's "After using an ability she has spent at least 10 mana on this day, she makes a free echo of that ability that manifests and resolves immediately. The echo may be used on a new area or target, and it is manifested as if it had 9 fewer points spent in it." So no matter what, the echo has at least 1 point in it.


Are the rider effects no save? Because they need to have saves... and how do the augments function with the "hit by both waves thing"?
The blind now only applies if the target fails its save on 2 ref saves, though the dazzle is still an automatic thing, regardless (because seriously, by level 20 a -1 really won't do anything in most situations).Also, now the Blind rider applies if it's 2 unsaved waves, meaning that the third wave gives a change to apply it if one of the others fail. (Though, being blind at that point might be the target's LITTLEST worry, depending on how the Starwalker is built Aegis wise.
Good kitty, make all those reviews. :smallbiggrin: Though what, no feats, favored class bonus, epic levels or items? :smalltongue: