Setting Brainstorming: T3-4 Classes, No Vancian Casters

[Nifft]

Another thread got me thinking.

What would a setting look like with only oddball magic classes? No Vancian mages or priests, no pseudo-Vancian psions, and generally no classes which are entirely dependent on daily resources to function.

I think the backbone of the setting would be:
- Warlock
- Binder
- Dragonfire Adept
- Totemist
- Swordsage
- Warblade
- Crusader
(but some maneuvers might need tweaking, like the healing ones)

Some classes might make it in with tweaking:
- Soulknife (needs buffs to get to T3)
- Wildshape Ranger (but no spells, so something else to replace them)
- Dragon Shaman, maybe, but it might need some buffs.
- Incarnate? It seems to be much weaker than the Totemist.
- Paladin? (but no spells, and daily Smite is a no-no, so a significant rework)

Mundane classes might need tweaking to make the T3-T4 cut:
- Marshal?
- Rogue?
- Barbarian?
- Scout?
- ... Fighter?

What other classes belong here that I've forgotten?

- - -

This would apply to NPCs as well as PCs, so the antagonist Necromancer with an army of zombies would be a Warlock, and the elite kobolds who serve the local Dragon-King might be Dragonfire Adepts or Swordsages rather than Sorcerers.

So, worldbuilding.

What D&D assumptions go out the window?

1 - No low-level item crafter NPCs. To make magic items, you must be a Warlock 12. Magic gear will be potent, but rare.
1a - Perhaps some other classes ought to get a similar feature, at a similar level (12 or so).

2 - Healing. The setting will need some alternative to traditional magical healing. Classes like Paladin, Dragon Shaman and Crusader which were built to compete with traditional magical healing might need adjustment; or, perhaps that level of healing ought to get spread around to other classes.

3 - Ranged weapons generally exceed magic range. Armies of mundane troops remain relevant. A small team of high-level characters could still wreak significant havoc on an army, but they can't necessarily defeat an army in the field.

4 - Travel and exploration. I think that losing all standard casters will make travel and exploration more significant parts of play, since teleportation is more limited.

5 - Monsters. Which ones become disproportionately harder with the removal of standard casters?

Thoughts? Thanks!

[Xervous]

You missed Factotums, they will be the skill monkey.

[AmberVael]

- Incarnate? It seems to be much weaker than the Totemist.

Incarnate is easy to underestimate- though it does have a fairly low optimization floor. Still, it can end up with some decent stats (Incarnate Avatar is the bomb, Vitality Belt is the tankiest tank, and you can boost any skill under the sun) and some cool abilities (Make zombies, become incorporeal, true seeing, heal others, Gate, Suggestion...). If you want to buff it, maybe improve its base chassis a bit (more skills and skill points for sure), but you can probably leave it as is.


Anyway, this is actually something I've played around with before myself. You might want to glance at Fax's ToB Core Class Update (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Tome_Of_Battle_Core_Class_Update), as it can help with some of the more martial classes.

On the subject of healing, what I eventually decided was to basically let everyone slowly heal outside of combat, without need for long rests or the like. To me the idea fit with the hero that can push on for crazy lengths of time. Maybe have some kind of slow reduction of how much people can heal so they'll eventually need to stop (maybe some kind of Vitality/Wound (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm) variant?) but otherwise allow them to shrug off wounds after wrapping a bandage around it.

[Nifft]

You missed Factotums, they
Nope. I'm explicitly excluding limit-per-day spellcasters.


Incarnate is easy to underestimate- though it does have a fairly low optimization floor. Still, it can end up with some decent stats (Incarnate Avatar is the bomb, Vitality Belt is the tankiest tank, and you can boost any skill under the sun) and some cool abilities (Make zombies, become incorporeal, true seeing, heal others, Gate, Suggestion...). If you want to buff it, maybe improve its base chassis a bit (more skills and skill points for sure), but you can probably leave it as is. The main buff I was considering would be to make each Incarnate a member of two alignment axes (Lawful Good rather than just Good). This would increase their ability to mix & match.


Anyway, this is actually something I've played around with before myself. You might want to glance at Fax's ToB Core Class Update (http://wiki.faxcelestis.net/index.php?title=Tome_Of_Battle_Core_Class_Update), as it can help with some of the more martial classes. Hmm. Those seem a bit ... simplistic. Also, it's weird that the Rogue loses Trapfinding, when Trapfinding isn't really comparable to any combat prowess.

I did my own Ranger (and Bard and Monk) conversion(s) (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?187901-ToB-Bo9S-Nifft-s-Compendium) a while back.


On the subject of healing, what I eventually decided was to basically let everyone slowly heal outside of combat, without need for long rests or the like. To me the idea fit with the hero that can push on for crazy lengths of time. Maybe have some kind of slow reduction of how much people can heal so they'll eventually need to stop (maybe some kind of Vitality/Wound (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/adventuring/vitalityAndWoundPoints.htm) variant?) but otherwise allow them to shrug off wounds after wrapping a bandage around it. Star Wars Saga Edition had a really nice Wound / Vitality system.

Hmm.

Maybe generalize the Dragon Shaman's fast healing Aura of Vitality thing, and just say that a short rest brings every PC back to half max HP. Expend resources from there.

Hmm.

[Sagetim]

I think you could adjust the Sangehirn into a healing class without too much trouble. The main factors you would need to account for is that it would no longer be a manifesting class. So, to replace it's manifesting it would gain a class ability to, say, absorb allies wounds into themselves by expending their psionic focus. Something on the order of transferring up to 3+wis mod hp damage per level in the prc from an ally to yourself as a standard action requiring the expenditure of psionic focus would probably work out. Sure, in the first few levels that's just going to be painful and horrible, but once you get fast healing while psionically focused, you can serve as an out of combat source of healing (or it could be a thing that npcs do, if you don't want your players getting into a heavily modified prc that still has it's 5 DR across 10 levels and up to 3 fast healing while psionically focused).



This reminds me, soulknife and it's prestige classes would be available, because nothing it does costs power points. Soulbows and Soulknives would be some of the most consistently well armed individuals in the world, since they wouldn't have to rely on buying magic armaments. You'd still need someone to be a source for psionic equipment, but that might be a new level 12 soulknife class ability.

And that's not even mentioning the Crusader Healing Cult that you could have as part of the setting. Crusaders can use their healing stance to heal themselves or an ally within 30 feet for 2 hp per hit they land, if you wanted to be silly about it, have lumberjacking crusaders hitting trees to heal 2 hp at a time (and needing a steady supply of axes since they aren't magical and would keep wearing down or breaking). A more vicious interpretation would have crusader gladitorial healers, involving either slaves, captured enemies, or crusader on crusader pit fights where one or both of them are channeling their crusader healing and healing maneuvers into the same target who is watching/passed out nearby.

Rapid Metabolism and I think it was Rapid Healing are both general feats that anyone can take. They do the same thing, if I remember right, and stack. The difference is that one requires 13 con and is listed in expanded psionics, while the other requires a +5 fort save and is from complete warrior. They double natural healing rates, or something like that.

Don't forget that if you wanted the society to be anything like what dnd societies generally enjoy, Binders would probably take a central role. This would be a tone shift from their normal outcast/burn the witch status, because Binders who can bind Beur could heal people (at 1 hp per standard action, or 1d8+up to 10 per full round action). In addition to that, Binders have a wide variety in the abilities they can draw upon, and the class itself is based around the very simple act of Pact Magic. You don't need a good cha score OR diplomacy ranks, because you don't actually have to succeed your diplomacy check to bind a vestige. You just generally Want to because it's advantageous. With how easy pact magic is, and the lack of wizards and clerics around to nay say them, Binding could be a very common and prevalent form of magic that is socially accepted. Though there would probably be varying levels of respectability. For example, if you suck at the diplomacy part of binding then you're always going to be subjected to the influence of your power's guarantor, and you're always going to be displaying their sign. Having the powers and not displaying the sign would be a subtle but braggable means of showing off your skill at binding vestiges. That, and if you're constantly subjected to the various influences and mood swings that binding vestiges poorly brings on, you'll probably have a life similar to a drug addict- feeling the need to bind the power (take the drug) even though it's the source of a lot of your problems.

In a world with binders as some of the primary casters, you could have an upper strata of binders with pedigrees of successful binders before them acting as a noble class, while the common binders are looked down upon. Of course, the noble binders couldn't just rest on their inherited reputation, if they couldn't talk their way out of a wet paper bag, they would show the signs of their vestiges and likely get shamefully disinherited if it went on for too long. Meanwhile, common Binders could rise up by displaying consistent skill and expertise in not only their ability to bind vestiges, but in intelligent application of the powers of their bound vestiges.

If you tweak the eldritch disciple prestige class, it could serve in place of actual clerics: Warlocks who make pacts with gods to serve them as spreaders of the faith. Using healing blasts to fix people up. Maybe some kind of combination of Enlightened Soul and Eldritch Disciple?

[Taveena]

The thing is the Incarnate is one of the strongest skillmonkeys in the game - they can get ludicrous bonuses to ANYTHING they want, with considerably more flexibility than other classes. Plus, if they can go double-alignment, then the strongest build is undoubtably Lawful Evil with Double Chakra (Soul), gaining huge bonuses to attack and damage.

I mean, still t3, but they're t3 already. They have a ton of utility, though it's a bit less clear than other classes. I guess you could buff their skillpoints to nudge them towards the role? But it doesn't seem super necessary.

[Extra Anchovies]

The thing is the Incarnate is one of the strongest skillmonkeys in the game - they can get ludicrous bonuses to ANYTHING they want, with considerably more flexibility than other classes. Plus, if they can go double-alignment, then the strongest build is undoubtably Lawful Evil with Double Chakra (Soul), gaining huge bonuses to attack and damage.

Um.

This means that the only possible alignments for incarnates are neutral good, neutral evil, lawful neutral, or chaotic neutral.

I also don't see any support for your claim in MoI, and for good reason. The incarnate is only able to pick one of the four alignment-based benefits as a balancing factor.


I mean, still t3, but they're t3 already. They have a ton of utility, though it's a bit less clear than other classes. I guess you could buff their skillpoints to nudge them towards the role? But it doesn't seem super necessary.

They definitely have nice utility. I did some math a while ago and an Incarnate can have bonuses and ranks in 18 skills as if they had them maxed. Not all at the same time, but they can juggle essentia every round so they might as well. If they focus more on a few skills they can get some pretty crazy bonuses.
K(Arcana), K(History), and UMD from Elder Spirit (plus Intimidate when you can bind it)
Balance, Escape Artist, Jump, and Tumble from Acrobat Boots
Gather Information, Search, and Sense Motive from Truthseeker Goggles
Hide and Move Silently from Kruthik Claws (requires Shape Soulmeld, so don't bother if you have a party sneak)
Bluff and Diplomacy from Silvertongue Mask
Spot from Keeneye Lenses

[Xervous]

Nope. I'm explicitly excluding limit-per-day spellcasters.


Why does this come across like some mixture of selectivity and ironic opinion... fah
Factotum sans spells then, it's as simple a change as stripping paladins of their casting.

[Nifft]

I think you could adjust the Sangehirn into a healing class without too much trouble. Prestige classes based around traditional full-casting classes would need significant adaptation, and are a low priority. Sorry.


This reminds me, soulknife and it's prestige classes would be available, because nothing it does costs power points. Soulbows and Soulknives would be some of the most consistently well armed individuals in the world, since they wouldn't have to rely on buying magic armaments. You'd still need someone to be a source for psionic equipment, but that might be a new level 12 soulknife class ability. Very good idea. With some buffing, a Soulknife / Soulbow could be quite viable.


And that's not even mentioning the Crusader Healing Cult that you could have as part of the setting. Crusaders can use their healing stance to heal themselves or an ally within 30 feet for 2 hp per hit they land, if you wanted to be silly about it, have lumberjacking crusaders hitting trees to heal 2 hp at a time (and needing a steady supply of axes since they aren't magical and would keep wearing down or breaking). A more vicious interpretation would have crusader gladitorial healers, involving either slaves, captured enemies, or crusader on crusader pit fights where one or both of them are channeling their crusader healing and healing maneuvers into the same target who is watching/passed out nearby. The vicious interpretation seems valid in terms of rules intent, and seems like a really interesting morally ambiguous setting element.

Yoink.


Rapid Metabolism and I think it was Rapid Healing are both general feats that anyone can take. They do the same thing, if I remember right, and stack. The difference is that one requires 13 con and is listed in expanded psionics, while the other requires a +5 fort save and is from complete warrior. They double natural healing rates, or something like that. Yeah, those are both good.


Don't forget that if you wanted the society to be anything like what dnd societies generally enjoy, Hmm. That just seems to beg the question: "What do D&D societies generally enjoy?"

Buer is L4, which means a 7th level character at minimum. 7th level NPCs are pretty rare -- certainly not guaranteed to exist in every random village.

Maybe there's an NPC class which just gets access to one Vestage, period.

Buer-Sisters would be very popular, without the baggage of having a full Binder 7 in every hamlet.


If you tweak the eldritch disciple prestige class, it could serve in place of actual clerics: Vancian casting? Noooooooope.



The thing is the Incarnate is one of the strongest skillmonkeys in the game - they can get ludicrous bonuses to ANYTHING they want, with considerably more flexibility than other classes. Plus, if they can go double-alignment, then the strongest build is undoubtably Lawful Evil with Double Chakra (Soul), gaining huge bonuses to attack and damage. Huh. Really? Even though they're a half-BAB class?

The only time I've ever seen Incarnum used was as half of a Gestalt, so my impressions are off.


I mean, still t3, but they're t3 already. They have a ton of utility, though it's a bit less clear than other classes. I guess you could buff their skillpoints to nudge them towards the role? But it doesn't seem super necessary. Yeah, more skill points seems viable. It's already a good mix-in class, with more skill points it becomes an obvious Rogue mix-in even without cheese.



Why does this come across like some mixture of selectivity and ironic opinion... fah
Factotum sans spells then, it's as simple a change as stripping paladins of their casting. Not sure what you meant by the stealth-text. The setting has restrictions, and that is selectivity, but selectivity isn't actually a bad thing. Also not sure what an "ironic opinion" would mean.

The changes that Paladins would need are pretty severe, and I'm not sure they can be accomplished. They're not simple.

Factotum is total NOPE.

[Xervous]

Not sure what you meant by the stealth-text. The setting has restrictions, and that is selectivity, but selectivity isn't actually a bad thing. Also not sure what an "ironic opinion" would mean.

The changes that Paladins would need are pretty severe, and I'm not sure they can be accomplished. They're not simple.

Factotum is total NOPE.

I'm curious as to why factotum appears as this insurmountable wall of NOPE. The spells are a minor aspect of the chassis and opportunistic piety amounts to so little it wouldn't be missed. Cunning dodge could be pruned just the same and it wouldn't likely be missed... and cunning brilliance is 19th level thus very unlikely to ever see play. Deprived of all this the class still functions remarkably well which leads me to the logical assumption that you have unlisted reasons for shutting this out, guiding thoughts that were left unmentioned in former posts. Why consider paladin before factotum when one fix is far simpler?

[Mehangel]

I'm curious as to why factotum appears as this insurmountable wall of NOPE. The spells are a minor aspect of the chassis and opportunistic piety amounts to so little it wouldn't be missed. Cunning dodge could be pruned just the same and it wouldn't likely be missed... and cunning brilliance is 19th level thus very unlikely to ever see play. Deprived of all this the class still functions remarkably well which leads me to the logical assumption that you have unlisted reasons for shutting this out, guiding thoughts that were left unmentioned in former posts. Why consider paladin before factotum when one fix is far simpler?

I agree with Xervous. Whenever I played a factotum, I almost never even used its spellcasting. Removing the spellcasting from the factotum will be so painless that I think several wouldn't even notice it missing.

[Nifft]

I'm curious as to why factotum appears as this insurmountable wall of NOPE.

Because it looks like a lot of work to write up basically a new class, for no significant benefit to the setting, since everything it does can already be done by someone else, and since it doesn't seem to have any archetype which isn't already covered by (several) existing classes, usually better.

You might be able to change my mind, though.

Write out your ideas for the full 20-level progression, with the text aimed at someone who has not memorized the Factotum's class features or their uses.

If it seems like it's bringing something new to the table -- something which can't be accomplished by a Warblade (Int to combat), a Rogue (skill monkey), or an Incarnate (flexible skill bonuses) -- then I'll happily think about how it might fit into the setting.

[Nihilarian]

How much of the paladin is left once you cut out spells and smites? Are you cutting spell-like abilities as well?

[Nifft]

How much of the paladin is left once you cut out spells and smites? Are you cutting spell-like abilities as well? Not merely cutting -- replacing with stuff that makes the class a viable T3.

If that works out, what's staying is:
- Lay On Hands
- Aura of Courage
- Divine Grace
- Divine Health
- Tons of roleplay flavor, spanning 5 edition.

I'm not sure that's enough for a class, but it's certainly enough for a PrC, if I can't find a way to distinguish the Paladin from a Crusader.

[JBPuffin]

How much of the paladin is left once you cut out spells and smites? Are you cutting spell-like abilities as well?

Not cutting smite, making it not-daily - part of the rewrite issues no doubt. Vancian is out period, so spells def have to go. Tbf, Lay on Hands could be better with no other classes super good at healing from low levels...iffy though.

As to Factotum above, it's removing 3 class features, not a rewrite AT ALL. Further, their major draw is doing stuff other people do, but simultaneously. It does come off as rather short-sighted to imply it requires fully redoing the class when it's not such a large problem. Now, if there's something else about the class that's bothering you, maybe the Inspiration Point system, then say so and be done. Getting rid of that would be a rewrite. Removing Vancian? No.

Give Paladins bonus feats instead of spellcasting? Keep what they have, give them a feat every fourth level, make Smite a per encounter thing (up to four or five per fight at 20?), and maybe a little more healing with Lay on Hands, and that makes it a workable No-vancian Paladin. Besides, up to 4th level spells doesn't get them much mileage in the typical Wizard-eat-Wizard world.

[Lans]

Not merely cutting -- replacing with stuff that makes the class a viable T3.

If that works out, what's staying is:
- Lay On Hands
- Aura of Courage
- Divine Grace
- Divine Health
- Tons of roleplay flavor, spanning 5 edition.

I'm not sure that's enough for a class, but it's certainly enough for a PrC, if I can't find a way to distinguish the Paladin from a Crusader.

You could also use that as a basis for an ACF for the crusader.

[Brova]

Not merely cutting -- replacing with stuff that makes the class a viable T3.

If that works out, what's staying is:
- Lay On Hands
- Aura of Courage
- Divine Grace
- Divine Health
- Tons of roleplay flavor, spanning 5 edition.

I'm not sure that's enough for a class, but it's certainly enough for a PrC, if I can't find a way to distinguish the Paladin from a Crusader.

Is there a reason that can't just be a thing Crusaders do? If you're giving up on the idea of having Paladins be spellcasters, there is zero actual difference between them and Crusaders. It doesn't even make sense as a PrC - your concept doesn't change at all.

One thing that seems tactically interesting is letting people take swift action spells as maneuvers, Possibly at higher levels. swift fly, wraithstrike and others all seem like basically reasonable things for Tome of Battle characters to do. Or as a way for the Monk to work - flurry of misses looks a lot better as a series of touch attacks.

I vote no on Factotum, simply because it's not conceptually different from the Rogue. Having a character concept of "makes a bunch of attacks and has a lot of skills" is exactly a Rogue, and as such the Factotum is not worth keeping around.

One thing you need to do is figure out a testable balance point and actually test for it. Otherwise you get classes like the Monk, which have a bunch of interesting abilities but are a steaming pile. Also, do you want full casters gone for power reasons or do you just want a world without daily limits? If it's the latter, it should be easy enough to knock out recharge based casters to fit whatever conceptual holes exist. If it's the former, you might want to go E6 or something instead or in conjunction. Given that you want people to not defeat armies in the field Warlocks (or at least high level ones) need to go, because they have at-will wall of fire and permanent flight.

One final question is what exactly this process is aimed at. Just a thought experiment? Producing a workable 3e variant at some specific balance point? A specific setting? A specific campaign?

[Nifft]

Is there a reason that can't just be a thing Crusaders do? If you're giving up on the idea of having Paladins be spellcasters, there is zero actual difference between them and Crusaders. It doesn't even make sense as a PrC - your concept doesn't change at all. That's a good perspective.


One thing that seems tactically interesting is letting people take swift action spells as maneuvers, probably at higher levels. swift fly, wraithstrike and others all seem like basically reasonable things for Tome of Battle characters to do. Or as a way for the Monk to work - flurry of misses looks a lot better as a series of touch attacks. There are already some touch-attack Maneuvers.

I bet new martial disciplines could be created to include a bunch of Swift-action spell effects. Not sure about wraithstrike in particular, but yeah, it's a very good idea to look at Swift spells as a source of new Boosts.

Swift fly seems like a good candidate.

[Brova]

I bet new martial disciplines could be created to include a bunch of Swift-action spell effects. Not sure about wraithstrike in particular, but yeah, it's a very good idea to look at Swift spells as a source of new Boosts.

Swift fly seems like a good candidate.

I dunno about entirely new martial disciplines. That seems like a lot of work for what is basically going to be only boosts. I might tie things to specific existing disciplines (i.e. blood wind seems like the sort of thing Tiger Claw wants to be doing), or just let people pick. One other thing that is reasonable is bleeding some of the lost concepts over into martial disciplines. For example, Tiger Claw seems like it might come with a pile of minor shape-shifting stances (think less polymorph and more Bear Warrior) and Shadow Hand could reasonably have some illusions.

As far as wraithstrike specifically goes, it's basically there to open up high level martials more. Right now charge based builds have an advantage with power attack, because it doesn't cost them accuracy. Letting people make touch attacks with their normal attacks closes that gap.

Vaguely related to that, I might consider implementing a couple of changes from Races of War (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=33310). Notably the ones about secondary attacks (having the -5 penalty for additional attacks apply only once, getting an extra AOO for each extra attack).

In terms of good choices for new maneuvers, basically all of the swift fly line of spells are pretty good. The karmic aura spells make for an interesting line of stances. Other than that nothing really springs out looking at a list.

[Nifft]

I dunno about entirely new martial disciplines. That seems like a lot of work for what is basically going to be only boosts. I might tie things to specific existing disciplines (i.e. blood wind seems like the sort of thing Tiger Claw wants to be doing), or just let people pick. One other thing that is reasonable is bleeding some of the lost concepts over into martial disciplines. Sure. I've already written five custom disciplines (http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?187901-ToB-Bo9S-Nifft-s-Compendium), and I can say that it's not necessarily all that difficult, but sure.


As far as wraithstrike specifically goes, it's basically there to open up high level martials more. Right now charge based builds have an advantage with power attack, because it doesn't cost them accuracy. Letting people make touch attacks with their normal attacks closes that gap. If that's your goal, then making it a Strike would be more sensible.

Wraith Blade
Action: 1 Full Attack
Make a normal full attack. All of your attacks target touch AC.


Vaguely related to that, I might consider implementing a couple of changes from Races of War (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=33310). Notably the ones about secondary attacks (having the -5 penalty for additional attacks apply only once, getting an extra AOO for each extra attack). That's not a bad idea, but it's orthogonal to class selection. :)


In terms of good choices for new maneuvers, basically all of the swift fly line of spells are pretty good. The karmic aura spells make for an interesting line of stances. Other than that nothing really springs out looking at a list. Gravestrike (et al.), Breath Flare (et al.), Battlecry... yeah I see a bunch of Swift spells which could be Maneuvers.

I'd probably extend Breath Flare (et al.) to encompass Desert Wind area-attack [Fire] maneuvers.

Good ideas, thanks!

[Taveena]

Um.


I also don't see any support for your claim in MoI, and for good reason. The incarnate is only able to pick one of the four alignment-based benefits as a balancing factor.



They definitely have nice utility. I did some math a while ago and an Incarnate can have bonuses and ranks in 18 skills as if they had them maxed. Not all at the same time, but they can juggle essentia every round so they might as well. If they focus more on a few skills they can get some pretty crazy bonuses.
K(Arcana), K(History), and UMD from Elder Spirit (plus Intimidate when you can bind it)
Balance, Escape Artist, Jump, and Tumble from Acrobat Boots
Gather Information, Search, and Sense Motive from Truthseeker Goggles
Hide and Move Silently from Kruthik Claws (requires Shape Soulmeld, so don't bother if you have a party sneak)
Bluff and Diplomacy from Silvertongue Mask
Spot from Keeneye Lenses

Yeah, this was in response to the suggestion they be allowed to be LG/CG/LE/CE, not just... as written.
Also, there's one of the NASTIEST ones in there you missed - Mage's Spectacles, eventual +20 insight bonuses to UMD, Spellcraft, and Decipher Script. S'one of the better builds for a Good incarnate, the pseudo-artificer.

[Nifft]

Yeah, this was in response to the suggestion they be allowed to be LG/CG/LE/CE, not just... as written. Yeah that idea was my fault.

I am NOT an expert in Incarnum -- I just think it looks cool, and I want to try out a setting where it can be more common.


Also, there's one of the NASTIEST ones in there you missed - Mage's Spectacles, eventual +20 insight bonuses to UMD, Spellcraft, and Decipher Script. S'one of the better builds for a Good incarnate, the pseudo-artificer. Hmm. I think that becomes significantly less nasty in a rare-magic setting where Wand-Mart might not be a thing.

[Taveena]

Hmm. I think that becomes significantly less nasty in a rare-magic setting where Wand-Mart might not be a thing.

Well... Warlock's Deceive Item lets them create wands of any spell they want.

EDIT: Fragon Shaman BADLY needs a buff to compete with DFA (much better at breath-blasting) or Marshal (much better at auras, and can even get DS auras with a feat). Wildshape Ranger is still t3 just with Wildshape and one of the spell-less ACFs. Wild Monk (Dragon #324) is also a non-casting t3. Invisible Fist Decisive Strike Monk might be able to hit t4.

A Paladin without spells is a low, low t5. Even if you give them both non-casting ACFs at once, still a low t5. I guess you could try giving them a maneuver progression, but at that point they're basically a Crusader with a horse (and the horse doesn't play well with movement maneuvers).

Rogue easily hits t4, and if the Factotum and the Beguiler (and the Spellthief, and the psyrogue) are out, it's one of the strongest skillmonkeys.

Fighter is, at best, a low T4 with Zhentarim or Dungeoncrasher. Scout is the one class that gives the Rogue any competition for the top Skillmonkey spot - just do not let anyone take the Sniper ACF, lest they quickly drop to the bottom of t5.

[Sagetim]

Oh, right, was Truenaming on the list? It's limiting factor is hitting DC's to do the stuff it does, but there are two ways of getting around that if you wanted to use the class basically as is:

The fix that I would use: Make it so that the law of resistance applies per target. This means more paperwork for truenamers, but it also means that a truenamer or someone with a few truenaming feats could use lesser word of nurturing on everyone in town in a single day. Of course, you would probably have to start using it on yourself after talking that much from throat damage...but that's a little beside the point. The advantage to this is that it makes truenamers actually capable of adventuring all day with a party of companions, and that they don't have to compete with the law of resistance bending them over and reaming them if they have to use offensive naming against various mooks and minions, then also on a boss fight. If you did this, you would have to make sure your players aren't going to get ridiculous in optimizing their truenaming skill though. One factor in your favor is the lack of magic item prevalence, but you'll probably want to nix Item Familiar as an available feat to maintain sanity.


Or

'optimized building'- such as item familiar, and so on to bring your skill bonus up super high. There are two problems with this though. One of them is that it's going to make a lot of truenamers samey if they All have item familiars just so they can keep their truenaming skill high, coupled with the relative rarity of magic items to start with due to the setting, item familiars become a seriously powerful feat to benefit from.


Also- What about Samurai from Oriental Adventures/Rokugan Campaign setting? Their ancestral daisho power would be super useful to fighters who need magic weapons. The trade off being that they need to maintain their honor to keep their weapons magical (and the offering costs- OA version costs cash/goods/money, the Rokugan version costs xp).

And back to Binders: with the right feat you could get Beur as soon as level 5, but an npc class to replace the adept that can bind one, and only one, vestige could make for a very flavorful replacement for the Adepts of the world. Beursmen and Beurswomen would be your helpful healer types while Aceceraksmen could be the investigators as they interrogate corpses and use paralysis touches to subdue targets for capture. Andrastian Knights could replace paladins (they get smite once per five rounds, after all). Focalorians would provide the world with it's much needed 'jerks who throw lightning'.

And to be clear about an earlier point- if you want to know what I think the average setting gets out of vancian casting existing, look at the history for Dragonlance. After the cataclysm, when the gods tossed a mountain at the world, took their clerics and went home you had a lot more problems than Just the fact that a mountain hit the continent and shifted the geography around. Without divine magic, there were no easy solutions to diseases that cropped up. There wasn't any magical healing option either, as there were no classes that could step up to replace clerics as the healers. You admittedly still had wizards, but if we looked a bit ahead in the timeline we'd find that without magic, the Dragonlance setting becomes a really ****ty place.

However, with access to Some form of magic, like warlocks who can blast the physically more imposing monsters that threaten civilization, or Binders/Beurswomen who can treat your diseases without succumbing to them, then you can have a setting that has the same kinds of day to day lives for the average person in the setting. Cities with large populations that Aren't being overrun with diseases, magically enhanced crops that keep the swelled populations from starving, supernatural forms of healing that allow brave individuals to not only live to fight another day, but to spring back up from near death and take the fight back on within a minute.

The more sophisticated locations will probably even have things like plumbing and basic sanitation. After all, if your main healers are beursmen and beurswomen, they'll probably start noticing that when they wash their hands between treating people it helps in the survival of their patients.

I suppose another way of putting it is that magic allows for civilizations to have the benefits of higher levels of technology without having that technology. Magically boosted crops providing the kinds of yields that the real world only gets with chemical boosting or genetic engineering shenanigans would be one example.

[Taveena]

The OA Samurai is a t5, like a Fighter. Unlike the Fighter, who has access to Dungeoncrasher and Zhentarim to make it to t4, the OA Samurai cannot take those ACFs and remains t5.

[Nihilarian]

One thing you can do with weak classes or classes where you have to remove spells is to gestalt 2 or more of them together. Like give the Dragon Shaman all the Paladin stuff that doesn't get cut, solidifying it's role as a frontliner with heals and auras and letting it stand out next to the DFA.

Or just make a list of classes that can be gestalted and let players take two of them and squish them together.

[Nifft]

Well... Warlock's Deceive Item lets them create wands of any spell they want. Well, it's Imbue Item, but yeah... it still requires a level 12+ character who spends a feat on Craft Wand. This is NOT going to be as common as it would be to find a 5th level NPC who spent a feat on Craft Wand.


EDIT: Fragon Shaman BADLY needs a buff to compete with DFA (much better at breath-blasting) or Marshal (much better at auras, and can even get DS auras with a feat). Agree.


Wildshape Ranger is still t3 just with Wildshape and one of the spell-less ACFs.


Wild Monk (Dragon #324) is also a non-casting t3. Invisible Fist Decisive Strike Monk might be able to hit t4. Wild Monk is just a Monk with Wildshape, right? Not sure I like that.

Decisive Strike is cool, but what is Invisible Fist?


A Paladin without spells is a low, low t5. Even if you give them both non-casting ACFs at once, still a low t5. I guess you could try giving them a maneuver progression, but at that point they're basically a Crusader with a horse (and the horse doesn't play well with movement maneuvers). I was thinking about giving them stuff from Knight of the Sacred Seal, and maybe all the Soulborn benefits so they'd have something interesting to do at high levels.

So Paladins would get to bind one 1st to 3rd level Vestige at character level 3, and that would be their "sacred seal". Then, at character level 4, they'd get some Incarnum perks.

Maybe.


Rogue easily hits t4, and if the Factotum and the Beguiler (and the Spellthief, and the psyrogue) are out, it's one of the strongest skillmonkeys.

Fighter is, at best, a low T4 with Zhentarim or Dungeoncrasher. Scout is the one class that gives the Rogue any competition for the top Skillmonkey spot - just do not let anyone take the Sniper ACF, lest they quickly drop to the bottom of t5.

Yeah I really wonder if Fighter should just be made a four-level Paragon mix-in class, which grants a feat every level, just to dispel the illusion that it's a viable class on its own.



Oh, right, was Truenaming on the list? It's limiting factor is hitting DC's to do the stuff it does, but there are two ways of getting around that if you wanted to use the class basically as is: I love the flavor of Truenaming, but the mechanics are just so awful. I'm not sure it can be made to work in a rare-magic world where you CANNOT guarantee access to that +10 Truespeak item on schedule.


The fix that I would use: Make it so that the law of resistance applies per target. This means more paperwork for truenamers, but it also means that a truenamer or someone with a few truenaming feats could use lesser word of nurturing on everyone in town in a single day. Of course, you would probably have to start using it on yourself after talking that much from throat damage...but that's a little beside the point. The advantage to this is that it makes truenamers actually capable of adventuring all day with a party of companions, and that they don't have to compete with the law of resistance bending them over and reaming them if they have to use offensive naming against various mooks and minions, then also on a boss fight. If you did this, you would have to make sure your players aren't going to get ridiculous in optimizing their truenaming skill though. One factor in your favor is the lack of magic item prevalence, but you'll probably want to nix Item Familiar as an available feat to maintain sanity. Yeah, that's a really interesting idea.

I'd need to write a program to track that stuff, though. I'm a very lazy bastard.


Also- What about Samurai from Oriental Adventures/Rokugan Campaign setting? Their ancestral daisho power would be super useful to fighters who need magic weapons. The trade off being that they need to maintain their honor to keep their weapons magical (and the offering costs- OA version costs cash/goods/money, the Rokugan version costs xp). Hmm. At first glance, it seems like it's not too strong or broken or anything... but it doesn't seem all that great.

Binders can get magic weapons from some vestiges.

Warlocks can make a magical touch-attack glaive which deals very high damage.

The fact that this setting is rare-magic means it might not adhere to wealth-by-level guidelines... I guess the XP expenditure version would obviate that.

Hmm.


And back to Binders: with the right feat you could get Beur as soon as level 5, but an npc class to replace the adept that can bind one, and only one, vestige could make for a very flavorful replacement for the Adepts of the world. Beursmen and Beurswomen would be your helpful healer types while Aceceraksmen could be the investigators as they interrogate corpses and use paralysis touches to subdue targets for capture. Andrastian Knights could replace paladins (they get smite once per five rounds, after all). Focalorians would provide the world with it's much needed 'jerks who throw lightning'.
Yeah, the Adept NPC class is a really good comparison. It would fill in the role of a "tribal caster" and a "village hedge mage".


I suppose another way of putting it is that magic allows for civilizations to have the benefits of higher levels of technology without having that technology. Magically boosted crops providing the kinds of yields that the real world only gets with chemical boosting or genetic engineering shenanigans would be one example.
True. This setting might be more gritty and less urban than traditional D&D.

[Extra Anchovies]

Yeah, this was in response to the suggestion they be allowed to be LG/CG/LE/CE, not just... as written.

Ah, right. Didn't realize that because you hadn't quoted anything.


Also, there's one of the NASTIEST ones in there you missed - Mage's Spectacles, eventual +20 insight bonuses to UMD, Spellcraft, and Decipher Script. S'one of the better builds for a Good incarnate, the pseudo-artificer.

You're right that Mage's Spectacles is a damn good one - better than Elder Spirit, which is the UMD source in the list I posted. Requires Split Chakra (Brow), but probably worth the investment.

I'm not seeing where you're getting +20 from. Incarnate 20 with Expanded Soulmeld Capacity (Brow) and 24 Consitution can get +18, but you're short one essentia and at the cap.


EDIT: Fragon Shaman BADLY needs a buff to compete with DFA (much better at breath-blasting) or Marshal (much better at auras, and can even get DS auras with a feat).

I'd just combine it with Dragonfire Adept and call it a day. Either that or give the Dragon Shaman an actual dragon chassis (d12 HD, full BAB, three good saves, 6+Int skills).

[Sagetim]

Oh. Right. Have you seen the Thieve's World Campaign Setting? It has an alternate casting system to the vancian casting and has a much grittier feel than what I would call 'normal dnd settings'. It's out of print and I'm pretty sure the company that made it folded years ago, but it might be useful for some of your purposes.

The gist of it's casting system is that casting a spell requires the caster to gather mana (making a check each round until they have enough to cast the spell) and then they take subdual damage based on the spell level if it's within their safe casting limit...or lethal damage if it's outside their safe limit but within their potential limit. For example, a mage in that Could cast a 6th level spell at level 1, if they had 18 int and were willing to take 12 lethal damage.

But one of the main problems is that it doesn't play nice with normal healing (which is what all the alternate healers we've been talking about in this thread do, normal healing). Even so, some of the setting information could prove useful for what kinds of gritty challenges face characters in a gritty setting.

Just because the Samurai doesn't have some list of alternate class features doesn't mean it's a bad class. In fact, with the Rokugan Campaign setting it's got a lot of feat options that don't otherwise exist. Most importantly, you can dip one level in samurai for the ancestral daisho, the class ability specifies character level, not samurai level.

And buffing Dragon Shaman seems like a good idea. Maybe with the ability to grow a draconic suit of scale armor by overeating for a week, and taking a 20 hours nap. They'd get something like 4+1/2 class level armor bonus, with a max dex of +6 and no spell failure while wearing it, and while it would weigh like, 20 pounds it wouldn't count towards their encumberance. Then the scale suit would last as long as they ate twice as much as they needed to each day. And when they stopped upkeeping that level of consumption it would peel off and leave their skin baby fresh and be a sufficient pile of dragon scales as per the character's size category.

I think that, giving them either a breath damage die of d8's, or number of dice equal to a same level dragonfire adept, and doing something to make their aura's not suck so bad would make the dragon shaman a very capable class.

And yes, the scale suit could result in players over eating, letting it molt, then overeating again to get piles of dragon scales sufficient to craft actual dragon armor...but if someone is going to that much trouble to do it, I think you can let them have it. In character, it would be a huge pain in the ass and the end result is that you could make some really cool looking armor that isn't particularly superior to normal armor.


Also: If you're going to yoink my ideas, that's fine. Just mention that I helped somewhere in your notes for the campaign setting (or when you copy and paste things from this thread, put the name of the poster next to it) :P

[Taveena]

I'm not seeing where you're getting +20 from. Incarnate 20 with Expanded Soulmeld Capacity (Brow) and 24 Consitution can get +18, but you're short one essentia and at the cap.


Incarnum Focus (Brow) for a total of +8 capacity. (Also, oh god, did I really write Fragon Shaman? Blech.) What's Elder Spirit from? Control-F is getting me nothing.

A Dragon chassis on the Dragon Shaman would probably pump it up to t4, making it a bulky front-liner encouraged to pump Con.

Wild Monk loses Slowfall and Bonus Feats, and in exchange gains Wildshape nearly identical to the druid (though very slightly delayed). It's actually stronger than Wildshape Ranger in that regard. It's compatible with Flurry of Blows replacements (like Decisive Strike and Flailing Strike) and Invisible Fist (Exemplars of Evil, trades Evasion for the ability to become invisible - not as the spell, so it doesn't end on an attack - for one round out of every three.) A Decisive Strike Invisible Fist Wild Monk wildshapes into an invisible Dire Polar Bear and then AoOs for 6d8+2*str mod with its bite, or 2d6+2*str with their claw... or just uses Flurry of Blows and Rapidstrike to viciously maul their way into t4 by raw damage alone. In addition to the utility of being able to take flying, sneaking, scouting, or other wildshapes... it makes it to t3.

[Extra Anchovies]

Incarnum Focus (Brow) for a total of +8 capacity. (Also, oh god, did I really write Fragon Shaman? Blech.) What's Elder Spirit from? Control-F is getting me nothing.

Ah, right. Forgot about that one.

Yeah, you wrote Fragon Shaman. I feel like that would make for a nice name for something but I'm not sure what. Maybe a firearms-focused alternate class?

Elder Spirit is one of the draconic soulmelds from Dragon Magic.

[Sagetim]

Incarnum Focus (Brow) for a total of +8 capacity. (Also, oh god, did I really write Fragon Shaman? Blech.) What's Elder Spirit from? Control-F is getting me nothing.

A Dragon chassis on the Dragon Shaman would probably pump it up to t4, making it a bulky front-liner encouraged to pump Con.

Wild Monk loses Slowfall and Bonus Feats, and in exchange gains Wildshape nearly identical to the druid (though very slightly delayed). It's actually stronger than Wildshape Ranger in that regard. It's compatible with Flurry of Blows replacements (like Decisive Strike and Flailing Strike) and Invisible Fist (Exemplars of Evil, trades Evasion for the ability to become invisible - not as the spell, so it doesn't end on an attack - for one round out of every three.) A Decisive Strike Invisible Fist Wild Monk wildshapes into an invisible Dire Polar Bear and then AoOs for 6d8+2*str mod with its bite, or 2d6+2*str with their claw... or just uses Flurry of Blows and Rapidstrike to viciously maul their way into t4 by raw damage alone. In addition to the utility of being able to take flying, sneaking, scouting, or other wildshapes... it makes it to t3.

Hehe, Fragon Shaman...getting his powers from the mysterious Fragons who live in peacable accord with the lesser Fraggles in various Rock environs.

Also: Hehe, Dragon Chassis. It could also result in an odd fifties culture reference as you have Dragon Shamans competing to have the best chassis (which doesn't mean the most ac bonus, but the prettiest one, the best shine, the smoothest scales, or what have you, all determined by competitively eating secret ingredients to spice their scales with different factors. Ooooo, I can see it now, with Dragon Shamans eating exotic materials to make their Chassis's speckled with various extra colors instead of boring old monocrhomes and metallics.)

Bear (https://images.susu.org/unionfilms/films/backgrounds/hd/the-golden-compass.jpg) in mind that the setting is supposed to be tossing out vancian casting and limit per day abilities, so unless that's wildshaping with unlimited uses per day, it's probably not going to work so much for the setting.

[Taveena]

Ah, right. Forgot about that one.

Yeah, you wrote Fragon Shaman. I feel like that would make for a nice name for something but I'm not sure what. Maybe a firearms-focused alternate class?

Elder Spirit is one of the draconic soulmelds from Dragon Magic.

Alas, they're both Insight bonuses, and wouldn't stack, though spectacles is Brow and spirit is Crown. Both give 4+2e Insight to UMD, though Spirit adds the bonus to Arcana, History, and possibly Intimidate, while Spectacles adds to the likely less useful Decipher Script, but also the wonderful Spellcraft.
Ultimately, it depends what slot you'd rather have free, if you're actually ABLE to shape Elder Spirit (requires Dragonblood), and whether you'd rather have Arcana and Intimidate, or Spellcraft.

[Brova]

EDIT: Fragon Shaman BADLY needs a buff to compete with DFA (much better at breath-blasting) or Marshal (much better at auras, and can even get DS auras with a feat).

I'm not convinced the Dragon Shaman has a niche worth caring about given that both the Dragonfire Adept and the Marshal exist. I mean, it's possible to rework the Dragon Shaman into being something usable, probably by adding SLAs based on the type of totem dragon, but it doesn't seem worth it.


Wildshape Ranger is still t3 just with Wildshape and one of the spell-less ACFs. Wild Monk (Dragon #324) is also a non-casting t3.

Why do you want two classes with wild shape?


Fighter is, at best, a low T4 with Zhentarim or Dungeoncrasher.

I don't think Fighter is sufficiently interesting to be worth trying to salvage if you're cutting classes. You should probably just slap it into the chassis of some underperforming 3/4 BAB class and move on with your life.


Scout is the one class that gives the Rogue any competition for the top Skillmonkey spot - just do not let anyone take the Sniper ACF, lest they quickly drop to the bottom of t5.

I could see Scout as a candidate for combining with Ranger. The Swift Hunter feat is precedence for it, and it gives you two basically usable classes: the hunter-ish woodsman-y type (Scout/Ranger), and the dude who turns into a bear (Wild Shape Ranger).


Oh, right, was Truenaming on the list?

Truenaming has a weird problem, which starts on a conceptual level, but also happens on a mechanical level. The first part of the problem is that there is already a basically workable mechanical solution to the stuff Truenaming does in the source material. You could just throw together any of the power word spells, some of the planar binding spells, and maybe a few other buffs or debuffs and move on with your life. The second part is that Truenaming as implemented is based on skill checks, and those are radically divergent with respect to level. It's not really good enough on either a mechanical level or a conceptual level to be worth salvaging.


Yeah I really wonder if Fighter should just be made a four-level Paragon mix-in class, which grants a feat every level, just to dispel the illusion that it's a viable class on its own.

If you are using Fighter to combat the fact that people don't get enough feats, you should just give people more feats instead.

[Taveena]

The reason to have two classes with Wildshape is the same reason you'd have two classes with Invocations or Incarnum. They occupy different fluff niches. Warlock and Dragonfire Adept are both pact-bound invokers. S'just one is for Dragon pacts, and the other is for... literally anything else. Gotta wonder why DFA exists, eh?

[Brova]

The reason to have two classes with Wildshape is the same reason you'd have two classes with Invocations or Incarnum. They occupy different fluff niches. Warlock and Dragonfire Adept are both pact-bound invokers. S'just one is for Dragon pacts, and the other is for... literally anything else. Gotta wonder why DFA exists, eh?

The example you should be going to isn't Warlock versus Dragonfire Adept, it's Dragonfire Adept versus Dragon Shaman or Marshal versus Dragon Shaman. Why is the wild shape Monk sufficiently interesting to justify existing along side the wild shape Ranger? On a semi-related note, the class with wild shape should probably either give some kind of sweet deal at level 6+, or everybody is going to want to be a Wild Shape Whatever 5/Master of Many Forms 10.

[Taveena]

The example you should be going to isn't Warlock versus Dragonfire Adept, it's Dragonfire Adept versus Dragon Shaman or Marshal versus Dragon Shaman. Why is the wild shape Monk sufficiently interesting to justify existing along side the wild shape Ranger? On a semi-related note, the class with wild shape should probably either give some kind of sweet deal at level 6+, or everybody is going to want to be a Wild Shape Whatever 5/Master of Many Forms 10.

Because the Ranger can't manage the concept of the unarmed meditant in tune with nature? Why else? The Dragonfire Adept - sorry, I'm harping on this, but seriously, the Dragonfire Adept's fluff is entirely redundant with the Warlock and it has similar mechanics. The Wild Monk at least fills a different mechanical niche.

They deserve to both exist because they are different concepts. The Wild Monk is still a MONK, first and foremost, thus the LN alignment restriction, the Flurry of Blows, the unarmored AC bonus. The Wildshape Ranger is still a half-caster (traded out here, obviously) powered by racism with a pet.

[Brova]

Because the Ranger can't manage the concept of the unarmed meditant in tune with nature?

Uh, what? That's 100% fluff. If your plan is to fight by expedient of being a dire bear, you do not need to be armed.


Why else? The Dragonfire Adept - sorry, I'm harping on this, but seriously, the Dragonfire Adept's fluff is entirely redundant with the Warlock and it has similar mechanics.

It has a similar resource management system - are Archivist (guy who studies books for divine power) and Wizard (guy who studies books for arcane power) redundant? The wild shape Monk and wild shape Ranger have exactly the same ability.


The Wild Monk is still a MONK, first and foremost, thus the LN alignment restriction, the Flurry of Blows, the unarmored AC bonus.

Alignment restrictions are simply fluff. You could totally make a Ranger who happened to be lawful. Flurry is okay, but doesn't actually work with natural weapons unless the ACF changes it. The unarmored AC bonus is a lot like wearing armor, except that it costs stat points instead of gold - not generally a good trade.


The Wildshape Ranger is still a half-caster (traded out here, obviously) powered by racism with a pet.

Those bonuses are bigger, but that only really serves to convince me that the Ranger should keep the "turn into a bear" spot. He has class features that are good and semi-synergistic with his alternate form.

If you really want two wild shape classes, the starting point should be Master of Many Forms. Have the base class grant some minor shapeshifting at 1st through 4th (stat buffs, natural weapons, movement modes) and wild shape at 5th. Then you either PrC into Master of Many Forms for versatility, or stay in the class, which grants slight wild shape improvements and Monk unarmed strike damage that stacks with natural attacks. Then you have two archetypes that actually feel distinct - the utility shifter and the combat shifter.

[Extra Anchovies]

Those bonuses are bigger, but that only really serves to convince me that the Ranger should keep the "turn into a bear" spot. He has class features that are good and semi-synergistic with his alternate form.

Fun fact: Wildshape Rangers can't turn into bears, unless there's a bear somewhere that's only medium size. Wild Monk, on the other hand, gets Wild Shape (Large) natively, at level 12.

They can get Large with a MoMF dip, but at that point we're talking about MoMF, not Wildshape Ranger.

[Brova]

Fun fact: Wildshape Rangers can't turn into bears, unless there's a bear somewhere that's only medium size. Wild Monk, on the other hand, gets Wild Shape (Large) natively, at level 12.

They can get Large with a MoMF dip, but at that point we're talking about MoMF, not Wildshape Ranger.

I'm of the opinion that Master of Many Forms is a secret class feature for wild shape Ranger (much like how all Dread Necromancers take tomb tainted soul at 1st, or Druids get natural spell at 6th level). If you take the wild shape Ranger variant, your goal is presumably to wild shape into things. Given that your actual class doesn't advance that while Master of Many Forms does, I don't really think there are going to be a lot of wild shape Rangers who don't end up taking Master of Many Forms.

But yes, you are technically correct.

[dascarletm]

I made exactly this setting idea once, and made a campaign around it. It was all very dark ages themed.

I made the game have very little magic items, and gave all the characters what amounted to VoP to compensate. Then every item that could be considered non-magic (like +X weapons/armor and abilities like keen, or elven boots/cloak) was available as non-magic. Magic items appeared as quest rewards and were very special.

I had the truenamer be a part of the backbone classes, using a fix of course.

[atemu1234]

Thieve's World Campaign Setting

I had not heard of this. Is it d20, and convertible?

[Nifft]

The example you should be going to isn't Warlock versus Dragonfire Adept, it's Dragonfire Adept versus Dragon Shaman or Marshal versus Dragon Shaman. Why is the wild shape Monk sufficiently interesting to justify existing along side the wild shape Ranger? On a semi-related note, the class with wild shape should probably either give some kind of sweet deal at level 6+, or everybody is going to want to be a Wild Shape Whatever 5/Master of Many Forms 10. 1/ Yeah, I'm not sure if the Dragon Shaman has a place in the setting.

2/ I'd rather beef up the Wildshape Ranger and not import MoMF to the setting.


The Dragonfire Adept - sorry, I'm harping on this, but seriously, the Dragonfire Adept's fluff is entirely redundant with the Warlock and it has similar mechanics. Some of the mechanics are similar, but some are very different. The area-vs-ray thing, for example, means they are tactically different. The typed damage (no SR) vs. untyped damage (with SR) is a strategic difference. Their relationship to magic items is different.


They deserve to both exist because they are different concepts. The Wild Monk is still a MONK, first and foremost, thus the LN alignment restriction, the Flurry of Blows, the unarmored AC bonus. The Wildshape Ranger is still a half-caster (traded out here, obviously) powered by racism with a pet. I'm not sold on Monks. They seem redundant with the Swordsage.

That said, the Decisive Strike Monk seems a lot better than the SRD Monk, and a Wild Shape Monk might be a cool hermit type character.

My main reservation is that Wild Shape + Monk AC Bonus seems significantly stronger than the Ranger's Wild Shape.


Fun fact: Wildshape Rangers can't turn into bears, unless there's a bear somewhere that's only medium size. Wild Monk, on the other hand, gets Wild Shape (Large) natively, at level 12. You are correct.

That's very silly and I see no reason to keep that restriction. I'd rather beef up the Wildshape Ranger and not import MoMF to the setting.


I made exactly this setting idea once, and made a campaign around it. It was all very dark ages themed.

I made the game have very little magic items, and gave all the characters what amounted to VoP to compensate. Then every item that could be considered non-magic (like +X weapons/armor and abilities like keen, or elven boots/cloak) was available as non-magic. Magic items appeared as quest rewards and were very special.

I had the truenamer be a part of the backbone classes, using a fix of course.

Oooo!

I'd really like to hear about your experience -- what you think worked, what you feel failed, what issues came up and how you worked around them.

Do you have a thread for your setting?

- - -

My ideas differ in significant ways from yours -- for example, I'm probably going to add obvious magical items (e.g. a flaming sword which deals extra fire damage), but no numerical bonus items (so the flaming sword deals extra damage but does NOT help your attack roll) -- but I'd appreciate hearing about your experience.

[Brova]

On the subject of wild shape, whatever class chassis you use needs some changes. Notably, I would expect this to go closer to ten levels than twenty, so being a normal Monk or Ranger until 5th is terrible for you character concept. I don't want to play "guy who eventually turns into level appropriate animals" at level 1, I want to play "guy who turns into level appropriate animals" at level 1. The ideal solution would be to just give wild shape at 1st, but that might be too good. You do at least want something like the PHBII ACF for Druids (shapeshift?) that gives you some minor animal boosts at low level. You also want to let people turn into large animals eventually, and maybe into magical beasts, vermin, plants, or elementals as well.

On the subject of magic swords, I think you are probably correct to steer away from "+1 swords", especially conceptually. Excalibur isn't a +1 sword, it's a sword of "being invincible" (actually it's the scabbard that does that, unless memory fails). Mechanically I would probably make anything you wield after level 5 or so count as magic to deal with DR and ghosts, and give magic swords a flat +2 awesome bonus to attack and damage. Conceptually, you might want to use the model of Saberhagen's Swords series. Basically, there are a finite number of magic swords and they are crazy crap like Coinspinner (which gives you super luck, but disappears if you stop looking at it) or Shieldbreaker (which makes you immune to everything except unarmed strikes). So there aren't "fire swords", there's the Hellbrand, a sword forged by demons which is covered entirely in fire (yes, the hilt too) and owned by the king of fire giants. So if you want a fire sword, you go and stab him in the face, and your fire sword lets you summon fire elementals, shoot sorching rays, and do some kind of fire based charge/teleport.

One other thing to ask is how high the dial should go in terms of character power. E6? E10? E12? If you set the dial past 8th or so, you also have to think about extraplanar creatures. Do demons live in a literal hell that you need plane shift to access, or are the chilling in the roots of volcanoes? Are the realms of the gods on other planes, or just at the top of really high mountains? Do fire elementals come from a world where everything is on fire, or are the basically sentient wildfires?

[Taveena]

Keep in mind that at level 1, they're restricted to 1 HD animals. Even a Wolf is 2 HD.

[daremetoidareyo]

The question I'm having is this: why is no-one talking about the wildshape dragonshaman?

[Nifft]

On the subject of wild shape, whatever class chassis you use needs some changes. Notably, I would expect this to go closer to ten levels than twenty, so being a normal Monk or Ranger until 5th is terrible for you character concept. I don't want to play "guy who eventually turns into level appropriate animals" at level 1, I want to play "guy who turns into level appropriate animals" at level 1. I see no reason to do that.

The game changes when Binders get a new level of Vestige.

The game changes when Dragonfire Adepts get Humanoid Shape.

The game changes when Warlocks get Fell Flight.

I see no reason why Rangers can't also have a breakpoint when their game changes, too.


On the subject of magic swords, I think you are probably correct to steer away from "+1 swords", especially conceptually. Excalibur isn't a +1 sword, it's a sword of "being invincible" (actually it's the scabbard that does that, unless memory fails). Mechanically I would probably make anything you wield after level 5 or so count as magic to deal with DR and ghosts, and give magic swords a flat +2 awesome bonus to attack and damage. Conceptually, you might want to use the model of Saberhagen's Swords series. Basically, there are a finite number of magic swords and they are crazy crap like Coinspinner (which gives you super luck, but disappears if you stop looking at it) or Shieldbreaker (which makes you immune to everything except unarmed strikes). So there aren't "fire swords", there's the Hellbrand, a sword forged by demons which is covered entirely in fire (yes, the hilt too) and owned by the king of fire giants. So if you want a fire sword, you go and stab him in the face, and your fire sword lets you summon fire elementals, shoot sorching rays, and do some kind of fire based charge/teleport. Yeah, kinda. Not so much the "conceptional weapons" -- those sound good for a story but terrible for a game -- but the idea of rare-yet-potent items is totally correct.


One other thing to ask is how high the dial should go in terms of character power. E6? E10? E12? If you set the dial past 8th or so, you also have to think about extraplanar creatures. Do demons live in a literal hell that you need plane shift to access, or are the chilling in the roots of volcanoes? Are the realms of the gods on other planes, or just at the top of really high mountains? Do fire elementals come from a world where everything is on fire, or are the basically sentient wildfires? No traditional "Great Wheel", no traditional gods.

If there is travel to another world, I'd prefer it to have more of a "Sword and Planet" feel.

Not sure if that's going to be a thing, though.

[Sagetim]

I had not heard of this. Is it d20, and convertible?

It's a 3.5 third party campaign setting with a few supplements done by, I think, Green Ronin? Based on a series of fantasy books that started in....I want to say the 80's.

I still haven't gotten around to reading the actual books, but the campaign setting has some nice mechanics.

[Brova]

I see no reason to do that.

The game changes when Binders get a new level of Vestige.

The game changes when Dragonfire Adepts get Humanoid Shape.

The game changes when Warlocks get Fell Flight.

I see no reason why Rangers can't also have a breakpoint when their game changes, too.

The problem is less about the game changing and more about the concept changing. Basically, if you're playing wild shape Ranger you want to wild shape into things - not wait around being a Ranger for half your life not doing that. I think there should probably be two Ranger options. One that gestalts together Scout and Ranger ala swift hunter and one that plays around with wild shape. Both of those are vaguely reasonable life choices (particularly if you give the swift hunter swift action movement at some point), and neither of them has a big conceptual gap.

You should figure out how many classes you want, what roles you want to exist, then decide how the Ranger (or other contested cases like Crusader/Paladin) should work from there.


Yeah, kinda. Not so much the "conceptional weapons" -- those sound good for a story but terrible for a game -- but the idea of rare-yet-potent items is totally correct.

Pretty much. The underlying model Saberhagen was working with is sound, but the actual specifics would suck in a game (no one wants their sword to just up and disappear). But you can do some cool stuff, particularly if magic items have exclusive access to conventional arcane or divine spells. Maybe a shield that emits a permanent lesser globe of invulnerability (probably belongs to an order of Paladins who hunt Warlocks), or a scepter that has a lesser planar binding effect, or a living lightning bolt (spiked chain equivalent) with storm powers.

One thing to ask with this in mind is how far you're planning to go down this road. Saberhagen's choice was pretty extreme. There are seriously twelve magic swords in the entire setting. It's pretty clear that you can't just go to a store and buy a flaming sword. But is the only flaming sword in the world Surtur's Hellbrand? Does the Sultan of the Efreet have a flaming scimitar? Are there multiple demon forged flaming swords out there? I'd probably want magic weapons to be common enough that every player gets one in a fairly reasonable time frame relative to the first player getting one, but not so common that most or even many people in the setting have them.


No traditional "Great Wheel", no traditional gods.

If there is travel to another world, I'd prefer it to have more of a "Sword and Planet" feel.

Not sure if that's going to be a thing, though.

I think this really comes down to two things. First, how much players are expected to advance. In an E6 game, you genuinely don't need other worlds. There just isn't enough to distinguish them. Second, how wacky environments on the prime are allowed to get. Imix is basically expected to live in a palace made of lava, but there's no real reason his lava place has to be on the Elemental Plane of Fire rather than in a volcano.

[Extra Anchovies]

The question I'm having is this: why is no-one talking about the wildshape dragonshaman?

I have not heard of this before. Please elaborate.

[daremetoidareyo]

I have not heard of this before. Please elaborate.

I mean if we're considering monks for wildshape ACFs, dragon shaman seems like it would have way more flavor with wildshape thrown in

[Nihilarian]

I mean if we're considering monks for wildshape ACFs, dragon shaman seems like it would have way more flavor with wildshape thrown inMonk already has a Wildshape acf. As far as I know, Dragon Shaman doesn't?

[dascarletm]

Oooo!

I'd really like to hear about your experience -- what you think worked, what you feel failed, what issues came up and how you worked around them.

Do you have a thread for your setting?

- - -

My ideas differ in significant ways from yours -- for example, I'm probably going to add obvious magical items (e.g. a flaming sword which deals extra fire damage), but no numerical bonus items (so the flaming sword deals extra damage but does NOT help your attack roll) -- but I'd appreciate hearing about your experience.

Sadly it was an in-person game so it's not documented on the forums. In my campaign any sort of "magic" (that is binding, warlocks, and DFAs) was pretty much forgotten. I did this specifically to limit the availability of overt magic to large forces. I didn't want flying squadrons of warlocks or what have you.

Sadly none of my players wanted to play anything but a fighter, a rogue, and a barbarian.

I was quite disappointed.

However when I had them fight enemies, I found that it was fairly balanced when fighting NPCs, but monsters were a bit of a challenge for the rogue. He kept being interesting, but only because the player was very clever.

You will find some monsters are going to be almost immune to a specific character, that's just how it is for T4s and 3s. The biggest thing is making sure encounters have something they can do during combat. Example: when fighting undead, I always had something the rogue could be doing. The largest undead fight had the barbarian, the fighter, and an NPC holding off an almost infinite number of undead, while the rogue was attempting to undo the various traps, hazards and locks stopping them for escaping.

A difference in power however, is not necessarily a bad thing. One of the larger campaign plots was that dragons(replaced spells with DFA invocations) were returning (sorry Song of Ice and Fire... had to rip you off.) Most didn't believe they even existed. This dragon was eventually killed by the party. It just required them to plan their attack more than they normally would, and I had to make sure the set-up had terrain suitable for an underdog to win. (not just a flat surface).

As for the wildshaping bit I made a custom class that revolved around that as well. I took ranger as the base, and gave it the shifter druid variant from the PHB2. I also added in regular wildshape at level 5. (the two could not be used in tandem). I removed most everything the ranger originally had. I ran one session with another group with it, but I don't think it was enough playtesting.

If you have any specific questions let me know, I'll be happy to answer.

EDIT:
Magic items were handled almost exactly as Brova described.

[Nifft]

The problem is less about the game changing and more about the concept changing. Basically, if you're playing wild shape Ranger you want to wild shape into things - not wait around being a Ranger for half your life not doing that.
The same exact argument could be made about every class feature that does not appear at first level.

And yet, classes are already front-loaded.

It's not convincing, sorry.


But you can do some cool stuff, particularly if magic items have exclusive access to conventional arcane or divine spells.
Not sure it's a good idea to try to back-door in the whole system that I just threw out.


It's pretty clear that you can't just go to a store and buy a flaming sword. But is the only flaming sword in the world Surtur's Hellbrand? Does the Sultan of the Efreet have a flaming scimitar? Are there multiple demon forged flaming swords out there? I'd probably want magic weapons to be common enough that every player gets one in a fairly reasonable time frame relative to the first player getting one, but not so common that most or even many people in the setting have them.
Magic items should be common enough that PCs get some early, and can expect to get more over the course of an adventure.

Starting at level 12, they can even craft their own.

Limited-use items like Wands should exist, but I'm not sure how common they should be.


I think this really comes down to two things. First, how much players are expected to advance. In an E6 game, you genuinely don't need other worlds. There just isn't enough to distinguish them. Second, how wacky environments on the prime are allowed to get. Imix is basically expected to live in a palace made of lava, but there's no real reason his lava place has to be on the Elemental Plane of Fire rather than in a volcano.
I've run campaigns through 18th level for Wizards and Druids, so I can handle T3 classes up through 20.

Since I've been talking about how Warlocks have a level 12 ability which impacts the world, it's pretty safe to assume E6 is not my goal ;)


Monk already has a Wildshape acf. As far as I know, Dragon Shaman doesn't?

I think his point is: if we're re-writing the game to make Monks not suck, why not also re-write the game to make Dragon Shamans not suck?

[Brova]

I've got one big question for you, Nifft: why? You seem to be trying to remove all the Vancian mechanics and power normalize everyone to about the level of the Warblade. And that's a reasonable goal. But to actually figure out what should be done in terms of leveling and magic items, you need to go deeper. Specifically, where are you starting from? Are you thinking that there is some specific setting you want to play in that would best be modeled by stripping out Vancian options? Or do you want to see what a setting looks like that is as faithful to RAW as possible, but without Vancian mechanics?


The same exact argument could be made about every class feature that does not appear at first level.

And yet, classes are already front-loaded.

It's not convincing, sorry.

I get that, but it's pulling the class in two different directions - woodsman with swords and a bow versus guy who turns into a beast. You can totally have those things in the same class, but I don't really see a reason to other than inertia for it to be that way. Especially given that the class looks completely different at levels 1 - 4 and levels 5+. When a Warlock gets fell flight, his character changes tactically from a guy who can't fly to a guy who can. But he's still running around having at-will powers and an energy blast, with fluff about making deals with demons.


Not sure it's a good idea to try to back-door in the whole system that I just threw out.

The spells subsystem has a big advantage for designing things like this because it already exists. You don't have to figure out how to get stuff to work, you can just use existing spells. But before you decide how magic swords work (I favor something like the system described bellow), you need two answer two sets of questions:

1. How common are magic swords, not for PCs, but in the world. Are they common enough that footsoldiers have them? Commanders? Kings? Rarer than that?
2. How much of a big deal is it if the guy you want to kill has a magic sword. Is he going to have slightly bigger offensive numbers and a rider on his attacks? Is he going to get some new tactical options? Does it give him strategic power (i.e. raising the dead, summoning demons, whatever)?

It sounds like you want something more mythic, so I'd probably lean pretty high on the rarity scale. I'm not really sure about the power scale. Number swords are boring, but if every magic sword is able to alter the weather over a continent or control the seas, that might weaken the "no casters" feel of the setting.


Magic items should be common enough that PCs get some early, and can expect to get more over the course of an adventure.

Starting at level 12, they can even craft their own.

Since I've been talking about how Warlocks have a level 12 ability which impacts the world, it's pretty safe to assume E6 is not my goal ;)

One middle ground between D&D's normal magic item system and something more in line with real world myth or Saberhagen style items is to have two tiers of stuff.

One one level, you've got magic items. Warlocks can make those (and maybe some other people, but maybe not). Those are things like a Frost Lance or Flame Sword or Lightning Bow. You get a basic power ("deals elemental damage", "causes bleeding wounds", "save against fear") and then a related advanced property ("shoots rays of fire", "automatic death knell", "extra damage to frightened people"). That lets magic items be common and somewhat predictable while still having relatively unique effects. You can buy (or at least find, make or commission) a flaming sword, but it won't just be "+1 to hit! +1d6 fire damage!".

Then you have artifacts. PCs probably can't make them, and they might combine several basic properties. So you could have Frostmourne, a thinuan greatsword that deals cold damage or negative energy damage. It lets the wielder do some kind of enervation based super move, turn into a mass of cold air, and raise zombies. These should probably be rare, and at least potentially important to the plot. Which sort of pushes towards having some kind of strategic utility.

One thing I would steer away from are +1 swords. Those suck. They're boring, and not getting them gimps you. Figure out what kinds of numbers you expect people to have, compare them to level appropriate opposition, and add a fudge factor as needed.

I'm not really sure how utility items should work. On the one hand, people totally have winged boots or cauldrons that create armies of the damned. On the other hand, solving problems by throwing feather tokens at them seems out of line with what you want.


Limited-use items like Wands should exist, but I'm not sure how common they should be.

I don't think you want to include wands in the setting if you're trying to get away from conventional casters. One possible exception are healing wands, but those are really a crutch for something you should explicitly support or not support (namely, people being able to adventure all day).


I've run campaigns through 18th level for Wizards and Druids, so I can handle T3 classes up through 20.

People who aren't full casters have a fairly hard time competing at high levels. Consider the balor. It's got a bunch of abilities, like "having a vorpal sword", "blowing up when killed", or "random magic". But importantly it has at-will blasphemy and the ability to summon a balor with a 100% success rate (interestingly, that means that a balor without summoning is about CR 18). So it can daze the entire part for a round every round while its friend beats on them. That particular fight is very hard to win unless you happen to be a caster with one of the tactics for getting immunity to daze.

One thing that might work is letting people pick up either a stacking DR 10/- or immunity to one thing (subject to reasonable limits - you can pick immunity to stunning, but not immunity to damage). But it depends on what you're trying to do. Advancing to level 20 is entirely a metagame construct. There's no reason you have to do it. A party of 10th level characters could fight a conspiracy of mind flayers, repulse an invasion by giants and goblins and so on, defeat a lich, root out a demonic cult, and then overthrow a dragon and its kobold kingdom. Going to 20 means that you are increasingly fighting monsters which incidentally have save or dies or no save disables, which is not something people are equipped to deal with without access to Cleric and Wizard and Druid spells.


I think his point is: if we're re-writing the game to make Monks not suck, why not also re-write the game to make Dragon Shamans not suck?

Because Dragon Shamans aren't conceptually or mechanically unique enough to bother. The Monk does something that other classes don't (try to) do - be a martial artist. But the Dragon Shaman doesn't. He's a guy with dragon powers, like the Dragonfire Adept. He's also a guy with auras, like the Marshal. What is he doing that makes him worth including?

I do think there's room to write a new dragon based class. Neither the Dragonfire Adept nor the Dragon Shaman really captures the idea of a guy dedicated to one of the ten kinds of dragon. You might rework it so that Dragonfire Adepts are people who study dragons in general while Dragon Shamans study particular kinds of dragons. But that kind of seems like a lot of work for fairly marginal returns.

[Sagetim]

All this talk of enchanted weapons reminds me of 2nd edition enchanting rules. Which were basically 'cast enchantment spell on item. Cast other spells on item within time limit. Cast permanency on it at the end. Risk con drain(Damage?).'

Now, admittedly, you don't have vancian casting to base magic weapons and armor off of. But you do have warlock invocations (among other things). So you could have the creation of magic items follow rules similar to 2nd edition ones. Your character will need a high quality crafted item to start with (maybe using certain materials for certain types of enchantments) and from that starting point the enchanter would pick an essence invocation, for example, to place on a weapon. Or a utility invocation to put on armor. Or what have you.

You would wind up with flaming swords that do +2d6 fire damage and the target has to save or catch on fire. You would get Armor that could sprout wings/a cape a la fell flight. You would get rings of invisbility that...work like rings of invisibility. Oh, and swords of acid that ignore SR...which could translate to magic bane or some other, more descriptive effect as the sword literally cuts into the bonds holding a magical creature together (oh, ignoring DR instead of SR).

Edit: In such a world, magic items aren't for sale. You can't find them in shops, but you can maybe commision a guy to build one for you in some places. You have to hunt down rumors about magical craftsmen, and some of them won't take money. Some of them will work for concepts, or because you've inspired them with what you want out of a magic item. The best you can buy is high quality gear from master craftsmen, who also work on commission rather than having a bunch of masterwork items sitting around their shop at any given time.

This is where adapting the Master Blacksmith from Magic of Rokugan comes into play, where you'll need to hunt down a smith who can make a +1'd item of primo quality to ensure that the enchantment will take from the other guy that you need to talk up into enchanting said item for you. And then there might maybe be a handful of magical artisans in the entire world who can both craft an item of high enough quality and enchant it.

[Nifft]

I've got one big question for you, Nifft: why? You seem to be trying to remove all the Vancian mechanics and power normalize everyone to about the level of the Warblade. And that's a reasonable goal. But to actually figure out what should be done in terms of leveling and magic items, you need to go deeper. Specifically, where are you starting from? Are you thinking that there is some specific setting you want to play in that would best be modeled by stripping out Vancian options? Or do you want to see what a setting looks like that is as faithful to RAW as possible, but without Vancian mechanics?
1/ Figure out if it's viable to meet all of my goals.
- Playable from 1-20.
- Fun for me to DM.
- Fun for players to play.
- Genre goals include Sword & Sorcery and Sword & Planet, with examples like Conan, Fafhrd & Gray Mouser, and (of course) Nifft the Lean.

2/ If it is viable, figure out how much work.

3/ If it's not too much work, figure out the details and do the work.


I get that, but it's pulling the class in two different directions - woodsman with swords and a bow versus guy who turns into a beast. That's kinda true, but I think that being a dude who can use a bow is not ever going to get old -- even if a character is optimized for being a bear, not all situations can be solved by bears.

Some things which I'm certainly going to steal from the Wildshape variant rules are:
- Unlimited use
- Forms boost your base attributes, not replace them
- Form utility is level-locked, not size-locked


The spells subsystem has a big advantage for designing things like this because it already exists. You don't have to figure out how to get stuff to work, you can just use existing spells. But before you decide how magic swords work (I favor something like the system described bellow), you need two answer two sets of questions:

1. How common are magic swords, not for PCs, but in the world. Are they common enough that footsoldiers have them? Commanders? Kings? Rarer than that?
2. How much of a big deal is it if the guy you want to kill has a magic sword. Is he going to have slightly bigger offensive numbers and a rider on his attacks? Is he going to get some new tactical options? Does it give him strategic power (i.e. raising the dead, summoning demons, whatever)?
I think magic should be for weirdos.

Some items (including all artifacts) will twist the user to their own will.

Other items, like wands, require that you have Use Magic Device ranks, and that means you deliberately studied to be a weirdo.

I do think magic items should be available for sale -- because that means city thieves robbing adventurers (like the PCs) is an expected activity. Magic items would be blackmarket, and if the salesman has gear which you want, then you might just be in his appropriate level range for a daily encounter.

Magic gear will always require risk. It might be wilderness risk, or it might be urban risk. Different characters will do better in different situations, so it's a strategic choice which risk to take -- but there is no risk-free way to acquire magic gear.


It sounds like you want something more mythic, so I'd probably lean pretty high on the rarity scale. I'm not really sure about the power scale. Number swords are boring, but if every magic sword is able to alter the weather over a continent or control the seas, that might weaken the "no casters" feel of the setting.
Yeah, I've already said that no number-boosts will happen.

That means the monster palette will need to be re-worked -- default monsters won't work at appropriate CR without spells or number boost items -- but that's fine, there's been a bunch of work already done in systems like Trailblazer and 5e.


Then you have artifacts. PCs probably can't make them, and they might combine several basic properties. So you could have Frostmourne, a thinuan greatsword that deals cold damage or negative energy damage. It lets the wielder do some kind of enervation based super move, turn into a mass of cold air, and raise zombies. These should probably be rare, and at least potentially important to the plot. Which sort of pushes towards having some kind of strategic utility. Oh yeah. Artifacts have always been a part of D&D, and the artifacts & relics section of the 1e DMG won my heart immediately.

Artifacts will certainly still be a thing.


I'm not really sure how utility items should work. On the one hand, people totally have winged boots or cauldrons that create armies of the damned. On the other hand, solving problems by throwing feather tokens at them seems out of line with what you want. Feather tokens might be fine, if they're rare and you can't just buy a bag of them at the local Wand-Mart.

Charged items in general seem pretty okay.


I don't think you want to include wands in the setting if you're trying to get away from conventional casters. One possible exception are healing wands, but those are really a crutch for something you should explicitly support or not support (namely, people being able to adventure all day). Well, here's the thing.

At least three of my backbone classes (Warlock, Dragonfire Adept, and Rogue) have Use Magic Device as a core skill. Incarnate has UMD tricks. Those classes need some kind of items to UMD.

AFAICT wands are the least problematic devices.

I might be wrong about this -- if I am, please correct me.


People who aren't full casters have a fairly hard time competing at high levels. Consider the balor. I'm NOT keeping the monster list identical to core D&D.

If the Balor breaks the game without T1 classes, then there is no Balor.


The Monk does something that other classes don't (try to) do - be a martial artist. I'd argue that the Swordsage is as much of a martial artist as the Monk.

Plus, the Swordsage is awesome.


All this talk of enchanted weapons reminds me of 2nd edition enchanting rules. Which were basically 'cast enchantment spell on item. Cast other spells on item within time limit. Cast permanency on it at the end. Risk con drain(Damage?).'

Heh, well, since there are no spellcasters, the solution will probably not be "cast enchantment spell" followed by two other spells. ;)

Is there something you dislike about Imbue Item?

I'm very interested in any issues with Imbue Item that experience has brought you.

[Sagetim]

1/ Figure out if it's viable to meet all of my goals.
- Playable from 1-20.
- Fun for me to DM.
- Fun for players to play.
- Genre goals include Sword & Sorcery and Sword & Planet, with examples like Conan, Fafhrd & Gray Mouser, and (of course) Nifft the Lean.

2/ If it is viable, figure out how much work.

3/ If it's not too much work, figure out the details and do the work.

That's kinda true, but I think that being a dude who can use a bow is not ever going to get old -- even if a character is optimized for being a bear, not all situations can be solved by bears.

Some things which I'm certainly going to steal from the Wildshape variant rules are:
- Unlimited use
- Forms boost your base attributes, not replace them
- Form utility is level-locked, not size-locked

I think magic should be for weirdos.

Some items (including all artifacts) will twist the user to their own will.

Other items, like wands, require that you have Use Magic Device ranks, and that means you deliberately studied to be a weirdo.

I do think magic items should be available for sale -- because that means city thieves robbing adventurers (like the PCs) is an expected activity. Magic items would be blackmarket, and if the salesman has gear which you want, then you might just be in his appropriate level range for a daily encounter.

Magic gear will always require risk. It might be wilderness risk, or it might be urban risk. Different characters will do better in different situations, so it's a strategic choice which risk to take -- but there is no risk-free way to acquire magic gear.

Yeah, I've already said that no number-boosts will happen.

That means the monster palette will need to be re-worked -- default monsters won't work at appropriate CR without spells or number boost items -- but that's fine, there's been a bunch of work already done in systems like Trailblazer and 5e.

Oh yeah. Artifacts have always been a part of D&D, and the artifacts & relics section of the 1e DMG won my heart immediately.

Artifacts will certainly still be a thing.

Feather tokens might be fine, if they're rare and you can't just buy a bag of them at the local Wand-Mart.

Charged items in general seem pretty okay.

Well, here's the thing.

At least three of my backbone classes (Warlock, Dragonfire Adept, and Rogue) have Use Magic Device as a core skill. Incarnate has UMD tricks. Those classes need some kind of items to UMD.

AFAICT wands are the least problematic devices.

I might be wrong about this -- if I am, please correct me.

I'm NOT keeping the monster list identical to core D&D.

If the Balor breaks the game without T1 classes, then there is no Balor.

I'd argue that the Swordsage is as much of a martial artist as the Monk.

Plus, the Swordsage is awesome.



Heh, well, since there are no spellcasters, the solution will probably not be "cast enchantment spell" followed by two other spells. ;)

Is there something you dislike about Imbue Item?

I'm very interested in any issues with Imbue Item that experience has brought you.


about balors: I've been in a party where we killed a balor within like, 2 rounds and none of the party members involved in the fight were T1 classes (Fighter, Duskblade/Abjurant Champion, Soulknife/Soulbow/Illumine Blade). Granted, I opened the fight by using a ring of telekinesis to throw 9 holy halberds at it, but the dm ruled that each of those that hit was burned away, so that trick didn't get repeated. Balors can die just like anything else when you hit them hard enough, fast enough, and often enough. Funny thing about that fight: when the balor died, all three of us were caught up in the death throes. The Fighter tanked it, the Duskblade made his reflex save, and my character was blasted into the ground...then his illumine blade ability triggered and he healed 5d8+5 hp when he would have hit 0/below 0 and he got back up and shook the ash off. Much to the astonishment and terror of the devil npc that was observing the fight. We had no party member casualties in that encounter. I think we were level 15, maybe, at the time.

I don't dislike imbue item, I was trying to convey that imbue item could act like 2nd edition crafting did, where the caster (in this case warlock) is using powers from their class list to give magic items their abilities.

If you're going to have magic items potentially twist the minds of the wielders, then the items should probably have ego scores and alignments that match their creators. Since most creators would be warlocks, you would probably have a low of evil magic items, some chaotic neutral ones, and a few chaotic good ones.

[Nifft]

about balors: I've been in a party where we killed a balor within like, 2 rounds and none of the party members involved in the fight were T1 classes (Fighter, Duskblade/Abjurant Champion, Soulknife/Soulbow/Illumine Blade). Granted, I opened the fight by using a ring of telekinesis to throw 9 holy halberds at it Heh. Awesome.


I don't dislike imbue item, I was trying to convey that imbue item could act like 2nd edition crafting did, where the caster (in this case warlock) is using powers from their class list to give magic items their abilities.

If you're going to have magic items potentially twist the minds of the wielders, then the items should probably have ego scores and alignments that match their creators. Since most creators would be warlocks, you would probably have a low of evil magic items, some chaotic neutral ones, and a few chaotic good ones. Hmm!

If magic items come in two flavors ("Chaotic Chip" or "Evil Ripple") then Paladins are going to be severely cut off. That might be their niche -- like in 1e, they have severely restricted magic item access. In trade, they get to imbue their weapon & armor.

That's a bit like merging in the OA Samurai, except the blade which gets imbued isn't necessarily a specific ancestral doohickey, it's just their current sword.

Hmm.

That would make the Paladin and the Soulknife both classes which enhance a weapon, but the Paladin does so because she can't use normal magic items, while the Soulknife gets all the magic items plus a mindblade / mindbow.

Hmm.

[Sagetim]

Heh. Awesome.

Hmm!

If magic items come in two flavors ("Chaotic Chip" or "Evil Ripple") then Paladins are going to be severely cut off. That might be their niche -- like in 1e, they have severely restricted magic item access. In trade, they get to imbue their weapon & armor.

That's a bit like merging in the OA Samurai, except the blade which gets imbued isn't necessarily a specific ancestral doohickey, it's just their current sword.

Hmm.

That would make the Paladin and the Soulknife both classes which enhance a weapon, but the Paladin does so because she can't use normal magic items, while the Soulknife gets all the magic items plus a mindblade / mindbow.

Hmm.

Or you could pull one of the paladin class abilities out of pathfinder and rejigger it to be a once per 5 rounds thing: imbuing a weapon with a celestial spirit to aid you in battle. I think it's normally like, 1 minute per level duration once per day or something, but for the sake of not having that limited BS you could have it work like:
Weapon gets enchancement bonus of 1 per 3 paladin levels (which means a +6, thus striking as an epic weapon at level 18 paladin). Weapon gets ability bonus points of 1 per 4 levels (which means up to +5 in abilities that they pick each time they activate the ability). With restrictions of: no evil or chaotic weapon abilities. And duration- 1 round per 5 paladin levels, 5 round cooldown, activated as a free action on your turn.

Admittedly, this means your paladins will be getting a weapon buff that gives their weapon a +1 bonus, but even at level 5, when they first get it, they'll be able to pick a +1 ability to slap on too.

Combine with Binding Andras, and your paladin can smite once per 5 rounds and have their weapon imbued with celestial spirit during the same round they smite, if they time it right.

[Nifft]

So... I was toying around with how to make this work, and I think there are two possible solutions.


Option One
Re-write all the classes to use an Essentia Skeleton.

The Essentia Skeleton would be a common framework into which all classes fit, which had base Essentia points and max allocation ceiling by level -- just like feats, ability increases, and max skill rank.

Even the Meldshaping classes would get re-written, since their Essentia assumptions might be off.

This would basically be a new d20 game which used a whole lot of D&D trappings but which isn't really D&D anymore.

I'd need some help play-testing it, in a few weeks.


Option Two
Re-write Binder, Totemist and Dragonfire Adept for 5e.

5e has a lot going for it. I like how it handles feats, and I like how it supports casters and non-casters being awesome.

5e Monks already have some Swordsage features; 5e Fighters already have some Warblade perks... it's pretty decent as a chassis and the Bounded Accuracy constraint is a really good fit for a rare-magic world.



Even if I do the Option One, I'm probably going to steal heavily from 5e:
- Bounded Accuracy
- Fewer but bigger Feats, and no Feat chains
- Magic item attunement limits (which will work like chakra binds)

Thoughts?

Has anyone done an "Essentia Skeleton" already which I can just steal?

[Sagetim]

So... I was toying around with how to make this work, and I think there are two possible solutions.


Option One
Re-write all the classes to use an Essentia Skeleton.

The Essentia Skeleton would be a common framework into which all classes fit, which had base Essentia points and max allocation ceiling by level -- just like feats, ability increases, and max skill rank.

Even the Meldshaping classes would get re-written, since their Essentia assumptions might be off.

This would basically be a new d20 game which used a whole lot of D&D trappings but which isn't really D&D anymore.

I'd need some help play-testing it, in a few weeks.


Option Two
Re-write Binder, Totemist and Dragonfire Adept for 5e.

5e has a lot going for it. I like how it handles feats, and I like how it supports casters and non-casters being awesome.

5e Monks already have some Swordsage features; 5e Fighters already have some Warblade perks... it's pretty decent as a chassis and the Bounded Accuracy constraint is a really good fit for a rare-magic world.



Even if I do the Option One, I'm probably going to steal heavily from 5e:
- Bounded Accuracy
- Fewer but bigger Feats, and no Feat chains
- Magic item attunement limits (which will work like chakra binds)

Thoughts?

Has anyone done an "Essentia Skeleton" already which I can just steal?

I still haven't had a chance to play 5e, but from what I've seen of it by reading through the rules it looks like a very solid and basic system that would work well as a springboard for this. I'm not that familiar with essentia, but if you wanted to adapt Binder to 5e, I think it would be fairly easy. I think the main place where and adjustment would need to take place is how some of the vestiges are written up (since resistance is a straight half damage in 5e rather than a numerical damage reduction), and the damage dice on some abilities might need to be adjusted up or down, or perhaps in die size (compare focalor's lightning strike vs the fire bolt cantrip, is what I mean).

[Cyrocloud]

I know this is a 3.5 game, but spheres of power might be what your looking for, its a 3pp book for pathfinder so it's a minor issue to convert back, and its a bunch of magic classes that use a new system that are in the 2-4 tier range, and can only hit tier 2 if you allow several optional rules.

[Mehangel]

I know this is a 3.5 game, but spheres of power might be what your looking for, its a 3pp book for pathfinder so it's a minor issue to convert back, and its a bunch of magic classes that use a new system that are in the 2-4 tier range, and can only hit tier 2 if you allow several optional rules.

Or if you allow Incanters to spend ALL their talents into specific spheres (such as Conjuration).

[Nifft]

I know this is a 3.5 game, but spheres of power might be what your looking for, its a 3pp book for pathfinder so it's a minor issue to convert back, and its a bunch of magic classes that use a new system that are in the 2-4 tier range, and can only hit tier 2 if you allow several optional rules.

Interesting idea, I'll give it a look.

Thanks!