Mendicant
2015-04-17, 06:30 PM
Short bit of background on my question:
I'm currently in the process of designing an E6/E8-ish system. I say -ish, because rather than the usual assumption of going to 8th level in a base class and then taking feats, a player instead levels to sixth and then chooses a capstone prestige class with only two levels to it. The goals here are to :
A: give players a strong, thematic capstone--something like what 4e's paragon paths and epic destinies were supposed to do.
B: keep non-casters more in line with their caster peers who are now getting 4th-level spells.
So, a (the?) defining feature of one of these proposed capstone classes is becoming large. It's a melee-centric, racial prestige class for a campaign-specific race that already has some of the benefits of large size (it's built using goliath as a chassis), so the jump in power is a little attenuated, but it's still a pretty big (ahem) change. Giving a melee-based character reach, a bonus to strength, bigger weapons, and bonuses on maneuvers makes them much more dangerous.
How much of a jump is this, really? I'm pretty confident that it's not going to make a buddy who can cast Greater Invisibility or Scry or Lesser Planar Ally feel too bad about themselves, but what kind of an improvement on other full-BAB classes is this? What is the damage output of a decently optimized class with a large weapon and a really high strength going to do to encounters? Any input would be appreciated.
I'm currently in the process of designing an E6/E8-ish system. I say -ish, because rather than the usual assumption of going to 8th level in a base class and then taking feats, a player instead levels to sixth and then chooses a capstone prestige class with only two levels to it. The goals here are to :
A: give players a strong, thematic capstone--something like what 4e's paragon paths and epic destinies were supposed to do.
B: keep non-casters more in line with their caster peers who are now getting 4th-level spells.
So, a (the?) defining feature of one of these proposed capstone classes is becoming large. It's a melee-centric, racial prestige class for a campaign-specific race that already has some of the benefits of large size (it's built using goliath as a chassis), so the jump in power is a little attenuated, but it's still a pretty big (ahem) change. Giving a melee-based character reach, a bonus to strength, bigger weapons, and bonuses on maneuvers makes them much more dangerous.
How much of a jump is this, really? I'm pretty confident that it's not going to make a buddy who can cast Greater Invisibility or Scry or Lesser Planar Ally feel too bad about themselves, but what kind of an improvement on other full-BAB classes is this? What is the damage output of a decently optimized class with a large weapon and a really high strength going to do to encounters? Any input would be appreciated.