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BananaPhone
2015-10-22, 05:02 AM
Still WiP, but the most up-to-date version on this classes adventure through Homebrew land.



The Voidlock



http://orig00.deviantart.net/b35c/f/2012/173/c/e/shadowy_apparition_by_alexgarner-d54fstw.jpg

"“I have seen beyond the bounds of infinity and drawn down daemons from the stars. . . . I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness. . . .”




Power is a tempting, demanding mistress whose embrace many of the mortal races have striven for. Some have killed for it. Others have lied. Some turn inwards and train themselves in the pursuit of the excellence that they believe will grant them the power that they so desire. Then there are Voidlocks, for whom power just comes naturally.

A blessed, or some would say cursed, people, Voidlocks have at one point in their history been touched by the infinite beyond, the Void. How such an insinuation arose is a mystery, but the result is a conductor of the paradigm of space and time and the darkness between stars. Like an engineer placed at the centre of the great machine of creation, all the cogs and wheels of existence is exposed to the Voidlocks whim.

A driven and willful breed of spellcaster, Voidlocks are alien in their operation and often their demeanor. Cryptic almost by default, the Void-born plunge into the abyss in their quest for deeper knowledge of that unseen tapestry that binds the material planes together. To such a mind matter is merely transitional in its state, whether their own or that of those who oppose them, as testified by their habit of sacrificing their own life essence to fuel their spells and ripping the vitality from their enemies. Unfortunately such self-interest is the hallmark of a Voidlocks attitude and though there are a rare few that look upon their mortal brethren with a protective eye, far too many see only cogs in the great machine of the multiverse.

Typically blessed with powerful constitutions and forceful personalities, these Void-borne sorcerers take to imposing their will on others as naturally as the fighter swings a blade, and were it not for the call of magic such beings would surely come to dominate whatever social circle they so desired. But blessed with the arcane they are, and as such the secret covens formed by these grim magicians are truly a nexus of political and magical power whose reach can extend much further than their enemies think.


Adventures: The search for power and understanding is unending in the world of a Voidlock. Understanding the Void and the manifestation of its creation is a road that stretches out eternal and Voidlocks need little convincing to travel its path.

Alignments: Any non-good. Though self-interested and driven by ambition, an evil murderer this does not make (though they typically are). Likewise, self-discipline is a necessary trait for any Voidlock seeking to resist the madness of the infinite beyond that they travel, and as such there are very few Chaotic Voidlocks. Typically Voidlocks are Neutral, Lawful Neutral and Lawful Evil, as though they are usually not particularly warm people, neither are they intentionally cruel for cruelties sake. As explorers of the darkness between stars and would-be master of the ghastly aliens that lurk within, something as inconsequential as mortal morality holds little meaning.

Other Classes: A Voidlocks ability to synergise with other classes depends heavily upon the personality of the individual Voidlock. As a vicious spell-caster with a frightening array of horrifying spells, they may be naturally devisive beings for good-aligned clerics and paladins to work with. Meanwhile wizards typically resent what they see as a lack of discipline while fellow sorcerers are usually suspicious of a non-academic caster whose magic speaks of an unknowable legacy. However, the most successful Voidlocks are those who have learned the value in cooperation and in an environment free of egotism a Voidlock has a lot to offer to a party who will trust them.

Role: Voidlocks command a host of spells that control a battlefield, drain the life from their enemies and enslave the aliens that lurk in the darkness between stars. As such, they are capable of being a primary caster within a group, where their higher hit point pool and life-draining abilities allow them a degree of autonomy from the healing and protection usually required to sustain a caster, and their understanding of the Void allows them expeditious travel.

Commoners View: Voidlocks are almost unheard of outside of the academic circles of the arcane. To the common man that witnesses their putrescent and horrifying spells, however, one of the main reactions is fear. The most abundant Voidlock spells inflict misery and pain on a scale that is hard to believe and their infectious nature elicits a primal terror in those who witness them.

GAME RULE INFORMATION
Voidlocks have the following game statistics.
Abilities: Voidlocks have compelling personalities and powerful constitutions that they constantly torture to empower their spells. As such, Charisma is the primary spell-casting statistic for a Voidlock, while Constitution plays an invaluable role for providing the Voidlock with a large pool of hitpoints for their class abilities.
Alignment: Any Non-good.
Hit Die: D8.
Starting Age: As Sorcerer.
Starting Gold: As Sorcerer.
Favoured Class Bonus: WiP

Class Skills:
The Voidlock's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are:
Bluff (Cha), Craft (Int), Fly (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (Arcana, Planes) (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Use Magic Device (Cha).

Skill Points at First Level: 4 + Int modifier
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier

Table; The Voidlock





Saves

Spells Per Day


Level
BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Special
1st
2nd
3rd
4th
5th
6th



1st
+0
+2
+0
+2
Virus 1d6
Cantrips
Master Summoner
Abyssal Horror
Void Pool
1







2nd
+1
+3
+0
+3
Soultear
Nexus Parasite
1







3rd
+2
+3
+1
+3
Contagion
2







4th
+3
+4
+1
+4
The Freezing Abyss
2
1







5th
+3
+4
+1
+4

3
2






6th
+4
+5
+2
+5
Nexus Parasite
3
2
-





7th
+5
+5
+2
+5
The Master and the Slave
4
3
1





8th
+6/+1
+6
+2
+6
Virus 2d6
4
3
2





9th
+6/+1
+6
+3
+6

4
4
2





10th
+7/+2
+7
+3
+7
The Darkness Between Stars 1/day
4
4
3
1




11th
+8/+3
+7
+3
+7

4
4
3
2




12th
+9/+4
+8
+4
+8
Dimensional Rift

4
4
4
2




13th
+9/+4
+8
+4
+8

4
4
4
2
1



14th
+10/+5
+9
+4
+9

4
4
3
2




15th
+11/+6/+1
+9
+5
+9
The Darkness Between Stars 2/day
4
4
4
3
2



16th
+12/+7/+2
+10
+5
+10
Virus 3d6
4
4
4
4
3
1


17th
+12/+6/+3
+10
+5
+10

4
4
4
4
3
2


18th
+13/+8/+3
+11
+6
+11

4
4
4
4
4
3


19th
+14/+9/+4
+11
+6
+11

4
4
4
4
4
3


20th
+15/+10/+5
+12
+6
+12
Eye of the Void
4
4
4
4
4
4





Table: Voidlock Spells Known


Level0[/th]123456
142—————
253—————
364—————
4642————
5643————
6644————
76542———
86543———
96544———
1065542——
1166543——
1266544——
13665542—
14666543—
15666544—
166665542
176666543
186666544
196666554
206666655


Weapon and Armor Proficiency:
Voidlocks are proficient with all simple weapons and no armor. Like any other arcane spellcaster, a Voidlock wearing light, medium or heavy armor, or using a shield, incurs a chance of arcane spell failure if the spell in question has a somatic component.

Voidlock Spells:

A Voidlock casts arcane spells drawn primarily from the Voidlock spell list. She can cast any spell she knows without preparing it ahead of time. To learn or cast a spell, a Voidlock must have a Charisma score equal to at least 10 + the spell level. The Difficulty class for a saving throw against a Voidlock's spell is 10 + the spell level + the Voidlock's Charisma modifier.

Like other spellcasters, a Voidlock can cast only a certain number of spells of each spell level per day. Her base daily spell allotment is given on Table: Voidlock. In addition, she receives bonus spells per day if she has a high Charisma score (see Table: Ability Modifiers and Bonus Spells).

A Voidlock's selection of spells is extremely limited. A Voidlock begins play knowing four 0-level spells and two 1st-level spells of her choice. At each new Voidlock level, she gains one or more new spells, as indicated on Table: Voidlock Spells Known. (Unlike spells per day, the number of spells a Voidlock knows is not affected by her Charisma score; the numbers on Table: Voidlock Spells Known are fixed.) These new spells can be common spells chosen from the Voidlock spell list.

Upon reaching 4th level, and at every even-numbered Voidlock level after that (6th, 8th, and so on), a Voidlock can choose to learn a new spell in place of one she already knows. In effect, the Voidlock loses the old spell in exchange for the new one. The new spell's level must be the same as that of the spell being exchanged. A Voidlock may swap only a single spell at any given level, and must choose whether or not to swap the spell at the same time that she gains new spells known for the level.

Unlike a wizard or a cleric a Voidlock need not prepare her spells in advance. She can cast any spell she knows at any time, assuming she has not yet used up her spells per day for that spell level.


Voidlock Spell List:

0-level Voidlock Spells (cantrips)

1st level Voidlock Spells:

2nd level Voidlock Spells:

3th level Voidlock Spells:

4th level Voidlock Spells:

5th level Voidlock spells:

6th level Voidlock spells:


Special Abilities:

Cantrips:
Voidlocks learn a number of cantrips, or 0-level spells, as noted on Table: Voidlock Spells Known under “Spells Known.” These spells are cast like any other spell, but they do not consume any slots and may be used again.

Voidpool (Ex):
From the infinite darkness between stars the Voidlock draws their reserves of power by exchanging their own blood for those slivers of eldritch might.

Each Voidlock possesses a pool of Void Points that power their abilities equal to 3 + their Charisma modifier.

These points can be refreshed in one of two ways. The first is following 8 hours of sleep followed per day by 1 hour of meditation. This will refresh all of a Voidlocks spent Void Points.

The second method is to sacrifice 2 hp per the Voidlocks current class level, doing so will refresh 1 Void Point. This can only be done once a round and requires a standard action.

Virus (Sp):

The Voidlock imprints seeds of the Void throughout a targets body. Like a metastasising cancer, these motes replicate and spread through the layers of tissue, suppressing the targets defences, consuming their vitality and rendering them vulnerable to further torments. As the sickness spreads the seeds begin to blossom in translucent, maggot-like whips that violently writhe about the targets body as if they were a worm-infected apple.

Virus is a Spell-like Ability that takes a standard action to cast and has a range of Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) that inflicts 1d6 Cold Damage. This damage increases by +1d6 at 8th and 16th level. This damage "ticks" at the end of the Voidlocks turn, every turn, beginning on the turn the spell was cast and remains on a target for 1 round per 2 class levels (rounding up). Only one Virus can be active upon a target at a time. If a target moves beyond Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level) range, Virus is immediately dispelled.

Additionally, Virus incurs a penalty on all of the targets saves of -2. This penalty increases by +1 per 3 class levels. A will save equal to 10 + ˝ the Voidlocks Class level + the Voidlocks charisma modifier suppresses this penalty for 1 round. This penalty can stack other other sources of penalties.

Finally, a Voidlock knows who and who is not infected by their Virus spell.

Virus costs 1 Void Point to cast.

Soultear (Sp):


The Voidlock gestures towards an unfortunate individual that has aroused their ire and opens their soul to the cold, yawning Void. To describe the ensuing pain with a mortal language would do it injustice, for the very fabric that holds together the seams of the targets essence starts to unravel as their flesh is shed from their soul.

Soultear is a Spell-like Ability that has a Medium range (100 ft. + 10 ft./level). Soultear does 1d6 Cold damage at 2nd level, and an additional +1d6 at every even level.

A Will save by the target against DC 10 + Half the voidlocks class level + the Voidlocks charisma modifier halves Soultears damage for 1 round.

If a target is afflicted with Virus when it is targeted by Soultear, then the Voidlock hits automatically and the duration is extended to 2 rounds.

Only one instance of Soultear can exist on the target. Targets afflicted with Soultear that move beyond Medium range (100 ft. +10 ft./level) of the Voidlock have their instance of Soultear immediately dispelled.

Soultear cost 1 Void Point to cast. Additionally, 1 Void Point can be spent to increase its damage per round by +2d6, to a maximum of the Voidlocks class level.

Nexus Parasite (Su):
At 2nd level, a Voidlock can spend a Void Point to modify a casting of Soultear to return half the damage it causes as hit points for the Voidlock, up to their maximum number of hit points.

At 6th level, as a standard action, the Voidlock can spend 2 Void Points to cause Soultear to spread to all targets suffering from their Virus. Each target is permitted a Willpower save against a DC of 10 + ˝ the Voidlocks class level + the Voidlocks Charisma modifier to negate this effect.

The maximum number of targets that can be affected in this way is equal to 1 target per 2 class levels.

Contagion (Su):

The Voidlocks Virus becomes airborne and infectious. Like a sentient plague it spreads to nearby enemies of the Voidlock in the search for more bodies to pollute. An abundance of targets only excites the Virus more as it accelerates its spread in the joyous consumption of a banquet of flesh. This is not some trivial disease of the body, but rather it is an erosion of the soul and the tapestry of their mortal visage as they are exposed to the darkness between stars.

At level 3, any hostile creature that is in base contact with a creature inflicted with the Voidlocks Virus must make a Willpower save equal to 10 + ˝ the Voidlocks Class level + the Voidlocks Charisma Modifier. This test must be taken every round that they remain in an adjacent square to a Virus-inflicted target. Failure indicates that they become infected with the Voidlocks Virus as if it were just cast on them.

At level 6, this Will save is required of all hostile creatures within 20 feet of a target afflicted by the Voidlocks Virus, with the same penalty.

The target need only pass one save per round to be protected. Finally, the maximum number of targets afflicted by Virus is equal to 1 target per 2 class levels.


Master Summoner (Ex):
Starting at 1st level, a Voidlock can cast summon monster I as a spell-like ability at a cost of 3 Void Points. He can cast this spell as a full round action and the creatures remain for 1 minute per level (instead of 1 round per level). At 3rd level, and every 2 levels thereafter, the power of this ability increases by one spell level, allowing him to summon more powerful creatures (to a maximum of summon monster IX at 17th level). At 19th level, this ability can be used as gate or summon monster IX. If used as gate, the Voidlock must pay any required material components. A Voidlock cannot have more than one summon monster or gate spell active in this way at one time. If this ability is used again, any existing summon monster or gate immediately ends. These summon spells are considered to be part of his spell list for the purposes of spell trigger and spell completion items.

Abyssal Horror:

The monsters summoned by the Voidlock are not the same as those conjured by other casters. Instead of drawing their servants from a myriad of realms, the Voidlock draws up grotesque, alien beings from deep within the infinite darkness between stars. These things are utterly alien in every way that is repulsive to life on the material plane, as their bodies are festooned with writhing tentacles, empty black eyes, maws filled with swirling teeth and forms whose substance sifts between liquid and solid within a soapy, rubbery black-and-green skin. Such creatures are offensive to any one of moral character, but the Voidlook walks upon their backs as instruments of his will.

All monsters summoned by the Voidlock through the Summon Monster and Gate spell-line acquire the Abyssal Horror template.

These creatures remain relatively the same as their normal counterparts, save that their type is changed to Outsider (negative). Do not recalculate any BAB, abilities or other statistics.

Abyssal Horrors speak Aboleth and Abyssal.

The Master and the Slave (Su):
Beginning at 7th level, whenever the Voidlock takes damage they can instead force an active summoned monster to take half of this damage on their behalf, up to a maximum of 15 hit points per class level per day.

The Voidlock cannot offset the sacrifice of hit points in the regeneration of Void Points in this way.


The Freezing Abyss
At 4th level, the Cold damage inflicted by Virus and Soultear ignore Cold resistance and cause half damage to creatures with Cold Immunity.

At 8th level, the Cold damage inflicted by Virus and Soultear ignores Cold resistance and immunity.


The Darkness Between Stars(Sp):

The Voidlock can banish one target per two class levels that are suffering from their Virus and is within Medium range (100 ft. +10 ft./level) into the cold, suffocating Void.

The target is permitted a Will save to resist the effect. If they fail, then they are teleported into the Void where they suffer 5d6 bludgeoning damage a round and must hold their breath or begin to suffocate. The targets are allowed a new saving throw each round as a full round action to return to their previous position, or the nearest empty space.

The Darkness Between Stars costs 3 Void Points to use, plus an additional +2 Void Points each subsequent time it is used per 24 hours. When under the effect of this ability, targets are considered in range of Soultear.

Dimensional Rift
TBA

Ethereal Gears
2015-10-22, 09:21 AM
I think this looks very cool. I do have a weakness for cosmic horror-themed homebrew material, so this is right up my alley, but I shall try to be objective in my analysis. :)

This is rather a powerful class, although none of its abilities look terribly overpowered. In essence, I think any final judgment regarding the class' power level will have to wait until you've finalized the spell list.

I would probably move a few abilities out of 1st level; it's rather crowded with class features. I especially think nexus parasite could stand being shifted to 3rd level or so. Soultear I don't think would be problematic to move to 2nd level, changing its damage to advance by 1d6 at every even-numbered class level instead of odd-numbered.

A note on master summoner: unless I'm misreading the ability, it doesn't actually alter the casting time, correct? This makes your note that "monsters are able to act in the same round that they are summoned" not actually have an effect. This is because the summon monster spells have a casting time of 1 round, meaning the monsters are summoned at the beginning of your next round, and thus already are able to act on the round that they are summoned. This is just a guess, but I think the effect you're after would be achieved by simply saying the spells' casting time is altered from 1 round to a full-round action.

I think the abyssal steed's shadow walk ability needs some kind of cost or daily limitation. I would suggest saying the steed can gain the shadow walk effect once per summoning. I would also probably make it take longer to summon the steed (standard or full-round action) and also limit daily uses a bit. Maybe three times per day, rather than being tied to Charisma. This isn't a major balance concern, but it just strikes me as more elegant. May be a difference in design philosophy, of course.

Lastly, while compression has a lot of limitations on it, I'm still leery of it requiring a Strength check with such a high DC to avoid. Ability checks gain a lot fewer bonuses than saving throws, yet it works off a saving throw DC. I personally think it would be preferable to just allow a Fort save to avoid it, or a Will save if you don't mind a less "physical" feel to how the effect works. I also don't think it should render creature's helpless. Something like entangled + staggered seems more appropriate. You could possibly make them helpless after 5 rounds or something, to coincide with the suffocation effect.

I will note that the compression ability is rather mechanically complex, so take my critique with a grain of salt. I'm rather going off first impressions here, and it's the sort of ability I would almost need to stage in a proper playtest in order to get to grips with.

One suggestion I have would be to create some kind of "selectalbe abilities" class feature a la alchemist discoveries, rogue talents, etc. (perhaps this is what macabre thesis is going to become?), and possibly move some features like abyssal steed and possibly also compression into this category.

Anyway, as I said, really cool class. It's possible after I read it through a few more times further notes will occur to me, but for now the above's what I've got. Looking forward to see how this develops. I'm really curious about how the spell list will turn out. Hoping for a lot of cool creepy psychic spells! :)

Cheers,
- Gears

Gwynfrid
2015-10-22, 09:43 AM
I like your enthusiasm, really... It makes me hesitant to give you too harsh feedback, but honestly, there are a lot of problems here. Many are just details and I don't have time to list them all - but I'm afraid they add up to a lot.

I'm going to give you the things that came to my mind first as possibly the biggest issues. This is in no way exhaustive.
- You went back to untyped damage :smallsigh:
- You have now two DoT features. This is too much by half, from a sheer bookeeping perspective.
- Thematically, you use a lot of standard energy: fire, electricity, and now gravity. Where's the void?
- If you use Summon spells spontaneously like a cleric casts Cure spells, you can't get to Summon VIII. You're limited by the spell levels you have access to ie. max VI.
- You have boosted your summoning capabilities to the level that a comparison with a Conjuration specialist wizard or a Summoner will be in order.
- The Abyssal Steed is going to be more intelligent and wise than its master. It qualifies as an full-fledged companion. This begs for full stats, and really, it's too much.
- Compression is frightfully complex. Look at the length of the text! It's going to be unplayable just from that perspective. It will take the DM 5 minutes to adjudicate every time you use it, and during that time you're going to see the annoyed looks on the faces of your fellow players.
- Generally, you unfortunately haven't resisted the temptation of inflation. Simply put, there is too much here. Too many class features, too many "additionally" clauses, too much complexity and, well, too much raw power, making this really hard to fully review. Sorry.

Ethereal Gears
2015-10-22, 09:53 AM
I had totally spaced out on that master summoner allowed you to exceed your maximum spell level. I would suggest making it work like the summoner's SM SLA and tie it to a pool of points (void pool or similar). I would also probably tie abilities like abyssal steed and compression to this pool, making them all expend points to use. Alternatively, you could have it all work off hp drain if you can come up with a balanced way of doing that. I also think I agree with Gwynfrid about the oddity of the damage types. I would probably start with just cold (classic void), then allow upgrades to negative energy and then force, at increasing costs. It's how I solved the damage problem for my shadewright (https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8e09cD4OAF3QU9pRklsakpOOVU&usp=sharing) class. These guys deal "shadow damage", which starts out as just cold, and then you can select abilities to improve it to negative and then force + a darkness effect. I really think something similar could work for the voidlock too. Possibly also adding in bludgeoning damage as per compression.

Just brainstorming a bit, but I hope at least some of that might be useful. :)

Cheers,
- Gears

BananaPhone
2015-10-22, 06:08 PM
I think this looks very cool. I do have a weakness for cosmic horror-themed homebrew material, so this is right up my alley, but I shall try to be objective in my analysis. :)

Thank you sir :smallsmile:.


I would probably move a few abilities out of 1st level; it's rather crowded with class features. I especially think nexus parasite could stand being shifted to 3rd level or so. Soultear I don't think would be problematic to move to 2nd level, changing its damage to advance by 1d6 at every even-numbered class level instead of odd-numbered.

Yeah it looks pretty cramped doesn't it?

I saw that while putting the whole thing together.

Half of it is just very tripe stuff....free feat, bonus langauge selection, cantrips....minor but essential stuff. I was thinking of putting those things together under one entry called "Acolyte" to save space.

Moving Soultear to 2nd lvl is possible...it wouldn't really hurt the class in practice, seems as at lvl 1 throwing around at will 1d6 damage is still competitive. That could be a good idea.



A note on master summoner: unless I'm misreading the ability, it doesn't actually alter the casting time, correct? This makes your note that "monsters are able to act in the same round that they are summoned" not actually have an effect. This is because the summon monster spells have a casting time of 1 round, meaning the monsters are summoned at the beginning of your next round, and thus already are able to act on the round that they are summoned. This is just a guess, but I think the effect you're after would be achieved by simply saying the spells' casting time is altered from 1 round to a full-round action.

It's not supposed to alter the casting time, no.

It's essentially copied from the Summoners SLA, but changed to allow spontaneous SM casting rather than a separate SLA. Because this classes casting is similar to the Arcanist. They still know spells like a sorcerer, but they have to prepare them like a wizard.

The more I think about it the clunkier it gets, so I can just move it back to normal sorcerer/summoner-like spontaneous casting and make Master Summoner just a Summon Monster SLA, same as the summoner, with the same restrictions.


I think the abyssal steed's shadow walk ability needs some kind of cost or daily limitation. I would suggest saying the steed can gain the shadow walk effect once per summoning. I would also probably make it take longer to summon the steed (standard or full-round action) and also limit daily uses a bit. Maybe three times per day, rather than being tied to Charisma. This isn't a major balance concern, but it just strikes me as more elegant. May be a difference in design philosophy, of course.

The limit could be 1 casting per 5 class levels. This lets the Steed take the Lock on a lovely adventure one way and back again at 10th level, and 4 trips at lvl 20.

Ah, the casting. I was going to make it an Immediate action, seems as this class doesn't have Feather Fall on its spell list....so perhaps it was just the nerdful glee in my head of having your talking, pet spectral horror horse swooping in and saving you from falling to death :smalltongue: lol. But that you're mentioning and I think about it, I can't really see a situation where summoning it as a swift action over a standard...maybe if the Voidlock is nauseated? lol


Lastly, while compression has a lot of limitations on it, I'm still leery of it requiring a Strength check with such a high DC to avoid. Ability checks gain a lot fewer bonuses than saving throws, yet it works off a saving throw DC. I personally think it would be preferable to just allow a Fort save to avoid it, or a Will save if you don't mind a less "physical" feel to how the effect works. I also don't think it should render creature's helpless. Something like entangled + staggered seems more appropriate. You could possibly make them helpless after 5 rounds or something, to coincide with the suffocation effect.

I will note that the compression ability is rather mechanically complex, so take my critique with a grain of salt. I'm rather going off first impressions here, and it's the sort of ability I would almost need to stage in a proper playtest in order to get to grips with.


Hmmm, Gwyn also thinks that the ability is complex.

Admittedly there is a filter between my simple, little brain and what gets put out on text so things could sound simpler to me because I'm the one that's thinking of it.

The basic idea is that the Voidlock points at someone that has Virus. Everyone else who also has Virus must resist a magical tug that otherwise slams them against that person and presses them all into a sphere. They all take bludgeoning damage as the voidlock keeps this spell summoned. If it goes for too long the blood and bodily fluids builds up and they all drown.

Maybe it's resisted by a grapple check, with targets receiving a penalty that they'd normally get from Viruses save penalty, and the Lock using their class lvl + charisma modifier for theirs.


One suggestion I have would be to create some kind of "selectalbe abilities" class feature a la alchemist discoveries, rogue talents, etc. (perhaps this is what macabre thesis is going to become?), and possibly move some features like abyssal steed and possibly also compression into this category.

That is the purpose behind Macabre Thesis, yes. I've got two write ups for them now. In the last incarnation it had 3, but I'm still thinking about what to put for the third.


Anyway, as I said, really cool class. It's possible after I read it through a few more times further notes will occur to me, but for now the above's what I've got. Looking forward to see how this develops. I'm really curious about how the spell list will turn out. Hoping for a lot of cool creepy psychic spells! :)

Thank you :smallsmile:.





- You went back to untyped damage :smallsigh:

What are you sighing for, Gwyn? :smalltongue:.

If it really is that terrible, then it can be Acid base and spend hp to make it Negative.


- You have now two DoT features. This is too much by half, from a sheer bookeeping perspective.

Well it's not like they've got any other blasty spells going for them :smalltongue:.

They've got Virus and they've got Soultear. Virus is the foundation that weakens enemies and serves as the locks entrance into enemies with their other abilities, while Soultear is the main source of damage and self-healing and mod-able debuffs. I merged Parasite into Soultear by giving Soultear a base self-healing and ability to boost its damage by spending HP to compensate.

I think this aspect of book-keeping will just have to come down to play testing to see how easy it is.



- Thematically, you use a lot of standard energy: fire, electricity, and now gravity. Where's the void?

Soul could be base Acid, as its eating away at people (Acid is a choice, I think), with HP swapping out for Negative. If the same is done to Virus, then that's two that are similar.

Gravity, I will point out though good sir, does appear on the Void spell list for the Wizard. Void is the "thing" that holds the material planes together, much like Gravity holds all the planets together in our universe. Plus the idea of undergoing decompression in the Void of space and all.



- If you use Summon spells spontaneously like a cleric casts Cure spells, you can't get to Summon VIII. You're limited by the spell levels you have access to ie. max VI.

Aye, but the spells can appear on their spell list - they just can't use them until they're the appropriate level.

But I do get the point. I attempted to port the Summoners SLA and bastardise it for a bit of different method of casting. Seems as I did it on the train ride home the chances that I've been successful are less then stellar.

So, the summoners SM SLA can just get ported in its entirety, complete with its limitations and uses per day.


- You have boosted your summoning capabilities to the level that a comparison with a Conjuration specialist wizard or a Summoner will be in order.

I'm not trying to be cute or play dumb here, but could you elaborate on this please?

The summoner (this classes closest comparison) gets their Eidolon, which is an incredibly versatile and potent perma-summon in addition to their summoning SLA's. By comparison the lock just gets to spontaneously cast summon monster that have the Outsider (Negative) template, which form an integral part of their defense by sharing hp. They don't get their perma-pet to summon and buff and direct, but instead get their couple of DoTs and debuffs instead.

If they take the Soul Stone Macabre Thesis I they can summon monsters quicker that have a small buff to them, but they're still more limited in times per day as opposed to the Summoner who also gets their perma-summon on top of that.

Again, because this is text you can't see more tone or face, but I'm genuinely interested in what you mean.


- The Abyssal Steed is going to be more intelligent and wise than its master. It qualifies as an full-fledged companion. This begs for full stats, and really, it's too much.


Heh, yeah this was pretty hamfisted of me.

Steinfur brought this up last time, but looking back on it as cool as it would be to by flying through the shadow realm with your spectral nightmare horse talking about history, probably better to cut all that out.

Just give it the shadow walk 1 times per day per 5 class levels to separate it a bit more from just the normal spell...perhaps say the horse is quite the conversationalist and speaks abyssal/aboleth. That'd solve the problem.


- Compression is frightfully complex. Look at the length of the text! It's going to be unplayable just from that perspective. It will take the DM 5 minutes to adjudicate every time you use it, and during that time you're going to see the annoyed looks on the faces of your fellow players.


Really? Hmm,you're the second to say that. It's based on your GD suggestion - the whole drawing enemies into a certain point :smalltongue:. I thought oO(How could would it be if you did that, and the weight of their bodies started crushing each other, and they drowned in their own blood!).


We could rework it entirely. Remember that last ability I had, where enemies get sucked into the void?

The Lock clicks their fingers and those who're affected by Virus get sucked into the Void unless they pass a Will test where they take bludgeoning damage each round until they pass.

A bit of a boost in damage + handy crowd control + temporarily banishing people to the crushing infinite void = cool?



- Generally, you unfortunately haven't resisted the temptation of inflation. Simply put, there is too much here. Too many class features, too many "additionally" clauses, too much complexity and, well, too much raw power, making this really hard to fully review. Sorry.


Damnit Gwyn :smalltongue:. On one hand it doesn't have enough to fill out dead levels and on the other it has too many :smalltongue:.

It does have complexity, aye, you're right there. I probably over-shot the mark with wording out COmpression, but if it's changed in the way I suggested above, that'd be a big thing out of the way. A few things that might seem to be "inflated" but have always been there (such as nexus parasite/contagion) have always been there, it's just now they've been separated so that they become activated on different levels.




I had totally spaced out on that master summoner allowed you to exceed your maximum spell level. I would suggest making it work like the summoner's SM SLA and tie it to a pool of points (void pool or similar). I would also probably tie abilities like abyssal steed and compression to this pool, making them all expend points to use.

That's probably a better idea.

Just port over summoners SLA, reskin it Master Summoner, and link the Abyssal Steed uses per day to its 3 + charisma pool.


I also think I agree with Gwynfrid about the oddity of the damage types. I would probably start with just cold (classic void), then allow upgrades to negative energy and then force, at increasing costs. It's how I solved the damage problem for my shadewright (https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B8e09cD4OAF3QU9pRklsakpOOVU&usp=sharing) class. These guys deal "shadow damage", which starts out as just cold, and then you can select abilities to improve it to negative and then force + a darkness effect. I really think something similar could work for the voidlock too. Possibly also adding in bludgeoning damage as per compression.


*slow smirk*


You see, Gwyn, other people like the idea of Force damage too :smallwink:.


Hehe, I'm just being playful.

But what about Acid as base? Spend HP to switch it to Negative.

Speaking of which, what do you think of my suggested change for Compression?


Just brainstorming a bit, but I hope at least some of that might be useful. :)

Cheers,
- Gears


You're more than welcome :smallwink:.

BananaPhone
2015-10-22, 07:58 PM
And changed some things!


- Virus damage type is Acid as base. At 5th level they can sacrifice hp to change this to negative once per round.

- Viruses duration changed to 1 round per 2 class level, rounding up.

- Soultear and Nexus Parasite got bumped to beginning at 2nd level.

- Soultears base damage type is Acid.

- Cantrips, Eschew Materials and Language of the Old Ones got merged into one ability called "Acolyte", if but to save some space.

- Master Summoner got replaced by a port of the summoners Summon Monster SLA with the exception of its effect on magic items (so they can't use it for making magic items or spell trigger etc).

- Abyssal Steed got all of its skills and int taken away, replaced by the fluff of it being an intelligent companion. It's uses of Shadow Walk was given a limit (1ce per 5 class levels) and the number of times the Abyssal Steed can be summoned shares "Times per day" with Master Summoner and the casting time got increased to a standard action.

Gwynfrid
2015-10-22, 11:20 PM
I'm sorry, but I think at this stage I find it difficult to continue helping you with this project. Reading the class again (and I'm afraid I can't find the time to read all of it) I'm struck with much the same feeling I got when I read your work for the first time... 10 months ago.

- You still have way too many class features.
- Many of them are way too complex (Compression isn't the only one).
- The majority of them are too powerful, some of them to crazy levels (Compression, Contagion).
- You have infinite healing (Parasite).
- You have untyped damage at will with no limit per day (Virus).
- You have an unlimited method to inflict damage that scales to 1d6/level/round, 3d6/level total with a single standard action (Soultear maximized with hp sacrifice).
- You still are a glass cannon (very limited defenses).
- You summon top-level monsters more times per day than a Conjurer Wizard.
- Complexity is pushed to the stratosphere: Your enemy will roll up to 4 saves per round (1 for Virus, 2 for Soultear with modulation, and a 4th one of your choice depending what you attack with during the 2nd round of Soultear). Not to speak of the unbelievable Compression...
- You create a lot of mechanisms that aren't normal within the rules: A Strength check with the DC of a spell; sacrifice hp to automatically hit with ranged touch...
- Thematically, you have a mix of disconnected things: Summoner, acid manipulator, energy leech, void damage that is really acid (unclear what the relationship is with the void), Will save vs acid damage, contagion via acid, energy drain via acid etc

And fundamentally, you have overpowered features at multiple levels. Just one example, Soultear: 1d6 damage + 1d6/2 levels. But you can sacrifice 5 hp per d6 to push this to 1d6/level if I understood this right. So you have sacrificed 5/2 levels hp fo this. Then over the next 3 rounds, Parasite will return half the damage to you: That's a total of 3d6/level x0.5 = on average a little more than 5/level. So your hp investment yields ~+100% hp profit if the enemy fails his save, and ~0 profit (but more or less zero loss) if he makes the save.

But, at the end, it's the complexity and the sheer length of your text that finishes me off. I just don't have enough time in the day to think about all the ways your class is over the top.

Your main problem, I think, is your great creativity. You just have too many ideas. You need to discipline yourself towards the notion that you can't have everything - if only because the DM doesn't have time to digest such a large, complex description. This will bring you the focus you need to get to the finish line. Otherwise you will go round and round on the excitement roller coaster and never bring the ideas down to Earth level.

BananaPhone
2015-10-22, 11:29 PM
And I lose Gwyn. This is a sad day indeed :smalleek:.


You're absolutely right that there is stuff that needs shaving and refining. That's exactly what I plan to do.

Promise me at least that in the near future when I get to that position you'll come back and give me your thoughts, as I value your insight.

BananaPhone
2015-10-23, 12:57 AM
Fresh round of shaving. Logging changes:


- Removed Abyssal Steed. This was physically painful as I love the idea of a sparkle pony, but alas, it can just be a normal spell.

- Removed Compression. 2/2 people think it's over-complicated, and uses wonky mechanics, that's pretty damning. Going to go back to an earlier idea I had based off the breaching the veil ability for the Starsoul sorcerer.

- Removed the modulation component of Soultear.

- Changed the base type of damage for Virus and Soultear from Acid to Cold. This one hurts as I hate the cold vulnerability with undead thing, but again, 2/2 people are right - Cold is far more thematic and fitting. That's the way the cookie crumbles I'm afraid.

- Removed the penalty from contagion that was -1 per extra target potentially affected. Just a straight will save now.

- Put a cap on the number of people that can be effected by Contagion and Nexus Parasite to be equal to 1/2 the voidlocks level.

- It's clear that Virus and Soultear need some kind of limitation on them, one that's tied into the Voidlocks HP a little more closely than just 2hp per level to change something. So I'm coming up with a "Void Pool" system where the Voidlock has a pool of points equal to 3 + charisma modifier. Virus, Soultear, Compressions replacement, Summon Monster, the macabre thesis, Contagion, Nexus Parasite etc all cost a certain amount of Void Points to use, and getting Void Points back requires sacrificing chunks of HP.

- Removed Eschew Materials free feat.

- Removed Language of the Old Gods. This can just be listed as a bonus language choice in the statblock.

Gwynfrid
2015-10-23, 04:50 AM
And I lose Gwyn. This is a sad day indeed :smalleek:.


You're absolutely right that there is stuff that needs shaving and refining. That's exactly what I plan to do.

Promise me at least that in the near future when I get to that position you'll come back and give me your thoughts, as I value your insight.

Sure. Send me a PM when you think you're done, I'll see what I can do.

Parting advice:
- Try to cut the total length of your non-fluff text by 50-75% (fluff can be as long as you like, just put it in italics). I'm serious: Compare the word count of recent PF classes (hybrid classes, occult classes etc) with yours. Do this not just by removing features, but also by reducing the word count of each feature.
- Try to reduce the total number of die rolls that you and the DM will have to roll in any given round, by 50%. For example, on the other thread Quarian suggested you drop the ranged touch attack. Good idea. Yes, I know you will be surprised because this increases your power and I keep telling you you're overpowered. But 1) it doesn't increase by that much, because touch AC is not very difficult to hit and 2) I'd rather have you cut the power of your attacks when they do hit: That's the overpowered part and the ranged touch roll doesn't compensate much. Plus, you will lose the frustration of wasting your round entirely. Caveat: You must leave open a possibility that rolls will result in zero damage (due to SR, resistance and/or saves). By the way: Why are you so shy about cold damage vs undead? Very few undead are immune to cold (skeletons, liches, that's all, as far as I know).
- Seriously, have only one DoT power: That's a 50% bookkeeping cut. There were ideas on the other thread about how to keep this interesting with just one DoT type. In this vein, you probably want to keep the modulations (just find a way that, with or without the modulation, the victims roll at most 1 save per round from your DoT).
- Be super-focused on your theme, even at the expense of what feels cool when you're writing it. For example: Why on Earth would the void do bludgeoning damage, of all things? Every single thing needs to reinforce your theme. Thinking this way will also help you selecting a limited number of features, keeping only those that add the most to the theme (example: Rituals; do they really add a lot to the theme?). Moderating your creativity with a bit of discipline will greatly help you.

Wishing you all the best in this exercise.

Jasdoif
2015-10-23, 05:26 PM
- Removed Abyssal Steed. This was physically painful as I love the idea of a sparkle pony, but alas, it can just be a normal spell.

- Removed Compression. 2/2 people think it's over-complicated, and uses wonky mechanics, that's pretty damning. Going to go back to an earlier idea I had based off the breaching the veil ability for the Starsoul sorcerer.Hmm....Perhaps there's a solution between the two of those, and also a way to tie them into the damage-over-time core of the class....


Off the top of my head....If we took the stats of a large fire elemental, removed the fire aspect (immunity to flame and vulnerability to cold), changed Burn to be the same type of energy as whatever DoT is afflicting the target in question (or simply not apply if they haven't been tagged), and made it a quadruped (reducing its reach to 5ft but granting it stability against trip and bull rush...that's still a thing in Pathfinder, right?)....We've got a DoT-synergistic mount to refluff as an abyssal steed.

OK, advancement as time goes on....first thing that comes to mind is a 3.5 variant necromancer class feature (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/specialistWizardVariants.htm#skeletalMinion). It doesn't scale well as a fighter on its own, but the steed shouldn't be overshadowing (outvoiding?) the voidlock, so it could work....Say, the steed has hit dice equal to the voidlock's level, natural armor increases every two levels, Strength and Constitution increase every three levels.

With that, it doesn't make sense to have the steed available until level 8 since that's when class level equals the large fire elemental's hit dice....So I'm thinking it doesn't need long-term limits, since phantom steed could be nearly-all-day by then; it would persist until dismissed or destroyed, but it takes a ten-minute ritual to resummon it with full health. That should keep it useful all day without being able to outlast encounters all by itself.

Compression...I'm going to be lazy, and say just add an air elemental's whirlwind ability at the appropriate voidlock level, and add the modified burn effect to the damage the whirlwind deals.


It's pretty unrefined right there, and would probably require removing summon-related class features or restricting them to work with this abyssal steed....But I think it would work conceptually as a sparkly horse, with a DoT augmenting effect, and the ability to turn into a storm of sparkly particles of death and/or void. And mechanically relaying on existing rules or simple adjustments, instead of needing a lot of new mechanical explanations.

Southern Cross
2015-10-23, 11:52 PM
Is that the Skeletal Minion necromancer class feature?

Jasdoif
2015-10-24, 12:18 AM
Is that the Skeletal Minion necromancer class feature?Somehow I forgot to name it when I put in the link...yes, that one.

Southern Cross
2015-10-24, 03:03 AM
Lets see if this works:
Voidsteed (Sp): At 8th level, the voidlock gains the ability to summon a steed of the void (voidsteed for short) with a ten-minute ritual. The voidsteed remains until dismissed or dispelled.
The voidsteed's Hit Dice are equal to the voidlock's class level, and the voidsteed gains a natural armor bonus equal to half the voidlock's class level.
At the voidlock's command, the voidsteed can transform into a spinning portal into the void, trapping a single target inside. This is equivalent to an air elemental's whirlwind attack, plus an additional 1d6 of cold damage per round.
This requires the voidsteed to make an attack roll to hit the target, but the voidsteed only needs to make an attack roll to set up the portal or to change targets.
The voidsteed can also carry passengers, at a cost of 1 Void point per passenger (even if the voidsteed is only carrying the voidlock). It is considered to be a phantom steed of equal level when traversing terrain.

BananaPhone
2015-10-26, 09:02 AM
Apologies that I haven't replied to you guys yet. This upcoming week is a monster for me.

BananaPhone
2017-08-02, 05:42 PM
2 years on I've been getting the itch to make this homebrew work, and so I might taking another crack at it.

Update:
- Removed a few typos.
- Got rid of grimoires.
- Added "The Freezing Abyss"
- Added "Dimensional Rift"

Virus and Soultear need to be combined into one ability to streamline and reduce book keeping. Contagion needs to cost void points per attempts to spread to nearby targets, not just happen automatically.

Jasdoif
2017-08-27, 07:03 PM
Lest you think no one's paying attention :smalltongue:


My biggest problem at this point is that I still have no idea what the unlisted spells are really supposed to accomplish. It's very difficult to gauge the effectiveness of the class abilities without knowing that.

That said, some quick ideas:

Virus and Soultear need to be combined into one ability to streamline and reduce book keeping.My recommendation on this point: Reduce soultear's range to close, make it typeless (since that's basically what the Freezing Abyss does anyway), make it only instant damage (but keep the amount the amount the same), and remove the void point cost for it. Then you can have Virus as a modifier on top of it. (I would note this makes soultear look a lot like the 3.5 Warlock's eldritch blast.)


Contagion needs to cost void points per attempts to spread to nearby targets, not just happen automatically.On this note, I think we can get away with something else: If someone succeeds on the save against contagion, they can't be affected by that warlock's contagion for the next 24 hours. Similar effects already exist, and this will simultaneously cut down the number of saves rolled and free the voidlock from having to decide whether to spend void points on an ability that might just be resisted by everyone anyway. (You already have the rule that a target can only have one virus, so creatures "tagged" by contagion wouldn't get another save until their Virus duration expires.)


- Added "Dimensional Rift"...I don't think a single line saying "TBA" really constitutes "added" :smalltongue:

Gwynfrid
2017-08-27, 08:01 PM
Lest you think no one's paying attention :smalltongue:


My biggest problem at this point is that I still have no idea what the unlisted spells are really supposed to accomplish. It's very difficult to gauge the effectiveness of the class abilities without knowing that.

Yup.


That said, some quick ideas:
My recommendation on this point: Reduce soultear's range to close, make it typeless (since that's basically what the Freezing Abyss does anyway), make it only instant damage (but keep the amount the amount the same), and remove the void point cost for it. Then you can have Virus as a modifier on top of it. (I would note this makes soultear look a lot like the 3.5 Warlock's eldritch blast.)

Unfortunately, unless BananaPhone has really, really changed his mind about his goals, this isn't what the class is about. The one constant in the whole project has been about damage over time, as opposed to instant. This is, alas, very difficult to manage from a game balance perspective.


...I don't think a single line saying "TBA" really constitutes "added" :smalltongue:

True. That said, this a level 12 feature. There are more urgent things that need fixing.


Virus and Soultear need to be combined into one ability to streamline and reduce book keeping.

I recommend removing Soultear altogether, and slowly build upgrades into Virus at higher levels. In fact, you're already doing some of the latter.




Additionally, Virus incurs a penalty on all of the targets saves of -2. This penalty increases by +1 per 3 class levels. A will save equal to 10 + ˝ the Voidlocks Class level + the Voidlocks charisma modifier suppresses this penalty for 1 round. This penalty can stack other other sources of penalties.

This is a very strong debuff, and scales to unreasonable levels (-5 at level 9... There aren't many ways to impose a -5 to saves in the game). I think it should not scale at all, or a lot more slowly (like -1 at level 1, increasing every 6 levels).

Plus, it forces a save every round. And a save just for the purpose of avoiding a penalty to saves is, well, annoying. I think the save should end the Virus altogether; or, at least, it should suppress the damage for that round.


At 4th level, the Cold damage inflicted by Virus and Soultear ignore Cold resistance and cause half damage to creatures with Cold Immunity.

At 8th level, the Cold damage inflicted by Virus and Soultear ignores Cold resistance and immunity.

I see you've taken to heart my many times repeated advice to not make this damage untyped. Unfortunately, you've added this minor clause: As it happens, I'm fairly sure there are very few creatures with cold resistance at less than CR4; and very few with cold immunity at less than CR8. So, for all practical purposes... You've made this untyped. Cute!

... But severely unbalanced. You're back trying to build something that can't be resisted or protected against by any class or monster in the game.

If you want untyped damage that's balanced, you can go the route suggested by Jasdoif, and make it look like the old Warlock: at-will, ranged touch, untyped, instant, 1d6 / 2 levels rounded up. But then, the other abilities of the class would have to be cut down: The Warlock had a very small list of other things he could do.

I don't see how it's possible to make something that works with untyped damage over time, especially with no save. For damage over time, you need to define what can resist it, and what can end it. For example, I think Dispel Magic and Remove Curse should end it.

Jasdoif
2017-08-27, 09:13 PM
Unfortunately, unless BananaPhone has really, really changed his mind about his goals, this isn't what the class is about. The one constant in the whole project has been about damage over time, as opposed to instant. This is, alas, very difficult to manage from a game balance perspective.I will admit, a big part of the suggestion was inspired by "Virus and Soultear need to be combined into one ability to streamline and reduce book keeping," and Soultear not listing its duration :smalltongue: Plus, "instant damage is boring, let's not make it cost a void point" translates readily to "even if I'm out of void points I can choose to contribute".


This is a very strong debuff, and scales to unreasonable levels (-5 at level 9... There aren't many ways to impose a -5 to saves in the game). I think it should not scale at all, or a lot more slowly (like -1 at level 1, increasing every 6 levels).

Plus, it forces a save every round. And a save just for the purpose of avoiding a penalty to saves is, well, annoying. I think the save should end the Virus altogether; or, at least, it should suppress the damage for that round.Yeah...the scaling is off, but I think the intention is the big question here. My recommendation would vary quite a bit if this is supposed to offset the lower spell DCs because the casting doesn't go all the way to 9th, versus helping the voidlock play better in a party.


If you want untyped damage that's balanced, you can go the route suggested by Jasdoif, and make it look like the old Warlock: at-will, ranged touch, untyped, instant, 1d6 / 2 levels rounded up. But then, the other abilities of the class would have to be cut down: The Warlock had a very small list of other things he could do.To some extent, yes...but I think cutting spellcasting could be enough. The warlock had a bunch of at-will utility invocations to choose from (and some nifty UMD tricks), and still tended to be a rather weak class since most of those invocations were available as spells levels earlier and means to counteract them were pretty easy to come by. Since there's a resource cost already available here, compared to the at-will nature of Warlock invocations, some special abilities that do fancy stuff could still be made to fit.


I don't see how it's possible to make something that works with untyped damage over time, especially with no save.Now, I can see it being acceptable for small DoT doses. Virus caps at 3d6 damage per round, for an average of 10.5 per round; even the basic resist energy practically negates it from the moment it becomes available....at level 3. That said, I'm not sure what the advantage to making it virtually typeless instead of making it actually typeless is...my baseless guesses involve interaction with protection from energy or some energy damage character option I'm unaware of.

Gwynfrid
2017-08-28, 07:38 AM
Yeah...the scaling is off, but I think the intention is the big question here. My recommendation would vary quite a bit if this is supposed to offset the lower spell DCs because the casting doesn't go all the way to 9th, versus helping the voidlock play better in a party.

Valid point, let me take it in a broader sense: It's hard to assess the class until we know what its main shtick, or dominant combat mode, is. If the idea is to fight through spells, it's very different from if the idea is to fight through summoning monsters, or to fight through damage over time and the spells only play a supporting role.


To some extent, yes...but I think cutting spellcasting could be enough. The warlock had a bunch of at-will utility invocations to choose from (and some nifty UMD tricks), and still tended to be a rather weak class since most of those invocations were available as spells levels earlier and means to counteract them were pretty easy to come by. Since there's a resource cost already available here, compared to the at-will nature of Warlock invocations, some special abilities that do fancy stuff could still be made to fit.

Agreed, the warlock was a weak class. I never felt attracted to it as a player, even though the concept was cool. The range of play was far too restricted.

I guess what I'm saying is, if you have at-will untyped no-save 1d6 / 2 levels, then that's your main combat tool, and everything else should play second fiddle or support to it.


Now, I can see it being acceptable for small DoT doses. Virus caps at 3d6 damage per round, for an average of 10.5 per round; even the basic resist energy practically negates it from the moment it becomes available....at level 3. That said, I'm not sure what the advantage to making it virtually typeless instead of making it actually typeless is...my baseless guesses involve interaction with protection from energy or some energy damage character option I'm unaware of.

I think this has a lot to do with the extended conversation that happened over this concept earlier. See the other thread (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?388069-PF-Warcraft-Inspired-Warlock), if you're curious (warning - those were loooong debates :smallamused:).

BananaPhone
2017-08-28, 07:59 PM
Wow - a burst of responses. And involving my old buddy Gwynfrid!

I'll give you guys a response in the next few hours. You're right that the unlisted spells will play a big role in things, as they are intended to go up to 9th level casting - but limited in selection.

Supplementing this is their class abilities that centre around damage over time, which Gwyn has correctly pointed out are very difficult to balance in a round-by-round game like PF/D&D. The reason for this is that a Damage over Time ability, by its nature, relies upon time passing to do its full damage. However, as levels advance, the idea is to end fights ASAP because the monsters become much more powerful.

But as I said, I'll draw up a response in a few hours. I'm more more amendable to changes and reductions etc Maybe even keeping a few DoT abilities that supplement their main casting, with the other abilities getting discarded all together. Hmm, we'll see!

BananaPhone
2017-08-29, 06:34 AM
Valid point, let me take it in a broader sense: It's hard to assess the class until we know what its main shtick, or dominant combat mode, is. If the idea is to fight through spells, it's very different from if the idea is to fight through summoning monsters, or to fight through damage over time and the spells only play a supporting role.


Voidpool (Ex):
From the infinite darkness between stars the Voidlock draws their reserves of power by exchanging their own blood for those slivers of eldritch might.

Each Voidlock possesses a pool of Void Points that power their abilities equal to 3 + their Charisma modifier.

These points can be refreshed in one of two ways. The first is following 8 hours of sleep followed per day by 1 hour of meditation. This will refresh all of a Voidlocks spent Void Points.

The second method is to sacrifice 2 hp per the Voidlocks current class level, doing so will refresh 1 Void Point. This can only be done once a round and requires a standard action.

Virus (Sp):
The Voidlock imprints seeds of the Void throughout a targets body. Like a metastasising cancer, these motes replicate and spread through the layers of tissue, suppressing the targets defences, consuming their vitality and rendering them vulnerable to further torments. As the sickness spreads the seeds begin to blossom in translucent, maggot-like whips that violently writhe about the targets body as if they were a worm-infected apple.


Virus is a Spell-like Ability that takes a standard action to cast and has a range of Close (25 ft. + 5 ft./2 levels) that inflicts 1d6 Cold Damage. This damage increases by +1d6 at 8th and 16th level. This damage "ticks" at the end of the Voidlocks turn, every turn, beginning on the turn the spell was cast and remains on a target for 1 round per 2 class levels (rounding up). Only one Virus can be active upon a target at a time. If a target moves beyond Medium (100 ft. + 10 ft./level) range, Virus is immediately dispelled.

Additionally, Virus incurs a penalty on all of the targets saves of -2. This penalty increases by +1 per 3 class levels. A will save equal to 10 + ˝ the Voidlocks Class level + the Voidlocks charisma modifier suppresses this penalty for 1 round. This penalty can stack other other sources of penalties.

Finally, a Voidlock knows who and who is not infected by their Virus spell.

Virus costs 1 Void Point to cast.

Soultear (Sp):

The Voidlock gestures towards an unfortunate individual that has aroused their ire and opens their soul to the cold, yawning Void. To describe the ensuing pain with a mortal language would do it injustice, for the very fabric that holds together the seams of the targets essence starts to unravel as their flesh is shed from their soul.

Soultear is a Spell-like Ability that has a Medium range (100 ft. + 10 ft./level). Soultear does 1d6 Cold damage at 2nd level, and an additional +1d6 at every even level.

A Will save by the target against DC 10 + Half the voidlocks class level + the Voidlocks charisma modifier halves Soultears damage for 1 round.

If a target is afflicted with Virus when it is targeted by Soultear, then the Voidlock hits automatically and the duration is extended to 2 rounds.

Only one instance of Soultear can exist on the target. Targets afflicted with Soultear that move beyond Medium range (100 ft. +10 ft./level) of the Voidlock have their instance of Soultear immediately dispelled.

Soultear cost 1 Void Point to cast. Additionally, 1 Void Point can be spent to increase its damage per round by +2d6, to a maximum of the Voidlocks class level.

Nexus Parasite (Su):
At 2nd level, a Voidlock can spend a Void Point to modify a casting of Soultear to return half the damage it causes as hit points for the Voidlock, up to their maximum number of hit points.

At 6th level, as a standard action, the Voidlock can spend 2 Void Points to cause Soultear to spread to all targets suffering from their Virus. Each target is permitted a Willpower save against a DC of 10 + ˝ the Voidlocks class level + the Voidlocks Charisma modifier to negate this effect.

The maximum number of targets that can be affected in this way is equal to 1 target per 2 class levels.

Contagion (Su):
The Voidlocks Virus becomes airborne and infectious. Like a sentient plague it spreads to nearby enemies of the Voidlock in the search for more bodies to pollute. An abundance of targets only excites the Virus more as it accelerates its spread in the joyous consumption of a banquet of flesh. This is not some trivial disease of the body, but rather it is an erosion of the soul and the tapestry of their mortal visage as they are exposed to the darkness between stars.

At level 3, any hostile creature that is in base contact with a creature inflicted with the Voidlocks Virus must make a Willpower save equal to 10 + ˝ the Voidlocks Class level + the Voidlocks Charisma Modifier. This test must be taken every round that they remain in an adjacent square to a Virus-inflicted target. Failure indicates that they become infected with the Voidlocks Virus as if it were just cast on them.

At level 6, this Will save is required of all hostile creatures within 20 feet of a target afflicted by the Voidlocks Virus, with the same penalty.

The target need only pass one save per round to be protected. Finally, the maximum number of targets afflicted by Virus is equal to 1 target per 2 class levels.



So using Virus and Soultear.

If you're a level 10 voidlock and you cast Virus on someone, assuming they fail, they take 2d6 damage.

The next round you cast Soultear on them. It hits automatically, and then does 5d6 damage, or 7d6 damage if the Voidlock spends another Voidpoint, and it does this for 2 rounds.

Assuming all fail saves, that's 16d6 damage over 3 rounds. Or 5d6 damage a round. To a single target. To do this requires 2 rounds from the Voidlock, with 1 spare to cast something else. At level 10. That's pretty garbage.

Compared to a sorcerer who can cast a vanilla lightning bolt or fireball each of those rounds and do 30d6 damage, at least.

Assuming the Voidlock spent its 3rd turn casting another spell, say a vanilla AoE damage spell like fireball, that's another 10d6 damage, for 26d6 in total; still short of the vanilla 30d6 a comparable sorcerer could throw out in the same amount of time.

However, the Voidlock also has the option:

a) All enemies within 20 feet of someone with Virus must make a Will save or contract Virus themselves.

b) spread Soultear to all enemies suffering from Virus.

and

c) cause Soultear to return 50% of its damage as HP to the voidlock.


It's arguable if returning 50% of damage done as HP is worth it, as the rest of your party wants your enemies dead ASAP. Remember, the longer the enemy lives round per round, the more hurt they can bring to your party.

However, this could be considered offset by the synergy between needing Voidpoints to power your abilities, being able to sacrifice HP to regenerate Voidpoints and Soultear returning 50% of its damage as hit points for the Voidlock. This means they could go all day if necessary.

But then again, what's the point of that if your party is dying because you can't help kill the encounter monsters quick enough?

Adding onto this is the Summoning ability of the Voidlock; being able to use Voidpoints to cast Summon Monster and Gate spells.

So the Voidlocks could supplement their slower DoT damage with a lot of meatshields to take the hits instead of the party.

This would also make them a fantastic solo class for solo games. But we can't really judge things on that, can we? :smalltongue:

So the rest of the class abilities (minus perhaps Freezing Abyss and Master and the Slave) could be removed as unnecessary. Soultear and Virus could be combined as mentioned by Gwyn, in order that it's just a single spell, Virus, that scales better with levels. When casting this spell it can be modified with Voidpoints (return damage as HP, spread to nearby enemies etc).

What are your thoughts so far on this general assessment?

Jasdoif
2017-08-29, 02:31 PM
So using Virus and Soultear.

If you're a level 10 voidlock and you cast Virus on someone, assuming they fail, they take 2d6 damage.

The next round you cast Soultear on them. It hits automatically, and then does 5d6 damage, or 7d6 damage if the Voidlock spends another Voidpoint, and it does this for 2 rounds.

Assuming all fail saves, that's 16d6 damage over 3 rounds. Or 5d6 damage a round. To a single target. To do this requires 2 rounds from the Voidlock, with 1 spare to cast something else. At level 10. That's pretty garbage.20d6, if they're failing the Virus saves on the second and third round. But since you're already talking about combining Soultear and Virus to get this down to one DoT to stop this kind of oversight, I suppose it's not going to matter too much longer :smalltongue:


It's arguable if returning 50% of damage done as HP is worth it, as the rest of your party wants your enemies dead ASAP. Remember, the longer the enemy lives round per round, the more hurt they can bring to your party.Why is it arguable? Spend two void points to spread soultear across them, and a third to get half of the soultear damage as healing for yourself.


So the Voidlocks could supplement their slower DoT damage with a lot of meatshields to take the hits instead of the party.Assuming the scenario precludes hitting it along with the party for area damage, or simply ignoring it. Meatshields tend to have that problem a lot in this system.


What are your thoughts so far on this general assessment?I think we still need to know what the spellcasting is supposed to accomplish :smalltongue:

Gwynfrid
2017-08-29, 03:30 PM
20d6, if they're failing the Virus saves on the second and third round. But since you're already talking about combining Soultear and Virus to get this down to one DoT to stop this kind of oversight, I suppose it's not going to matter too much longer :smalltongue:

Indeed, this miscounting is a superb example. When things are too complicated, they just don't work. Simply because, during combat, the players' and DM's brains are too busy resolving the already complicated core rules.

This problem is as old as the game. I remember reading about it in a fanzine article explaining why the creation of new classes for the game was often detrimental to play. The game was AD&D, 1st edition. The article followed up with a hilarious example of a needlessly complicated, vastly overpowered class...

Besides, as written, Virus doesn't have a save to mitigate damage. Only Soultear does (this inconsistency adds to the complexity and is easily forgotten). Therefore, the damage is 2d6 per round for 5 rounds. Plus Soultear, 7d6 per round for 2 rounds. Total 24d6, or 17d6 if the victim makes her save vs Soultear. Not bad for 2 actions, even if this damage is spread over 5 rounds. Sure, the group's fighter may have ended the threat after 2 rounds. However, if every fight is like this, then it's your DM's job to make encounters more challenging. If he doesn't, then you should reconsider your carrier choice as a damage over time dealer.

By the way, I don't understand the clause "1 Void Point can be spent to increase its damage per round by +2d6, to a maximum of the Voidlocks class level." What does the maximum apply to? The damage? the number of void points spent that way? The number of d6?

Small thing: In this sentence "If a target is afflicted with Virus when it is targeted by Soultear, then the Voidlock hits automatically and the duration is extended to 2 rounds" the words "hit automatically" are unnecessary, since Soultear and Virus don't require attack rolls.


I'll give you guys a response in the next few hours. You're right that the unlisted spells will play a big role in things, as they are intended to go up to 9th level casting - but limited in selection.

Wait, wait. Is this serious or a typo? If you intend to be a full caster, then that's your main shtick. The rest is completely secondary. At most, it can be as powerful as the witch's hexes, none of which deal direct damage. Restricting the spell list will not change this: If you're a full caster you're a full caster; maybe a poor one, but you aren't going to adequately use that to compensate. Well, you can try, but I predict it will not work.


Valid point, let me take it in a broader sense: It's hard to assess the class until we know what its main shtick, or dominant combat mode, is. If the idea is to fight through spells, it's very different from if the idea is to fight through summoning monsters, or to fight through damage over time and the spells only play a supporting role.

I'm glad you're quoting me. The discussion of Soultear/Virus damage doesn't answer the question, though. What's your primary combat mode?

I agree with Jasdoif that we need the spell list, at least a tentative one. Otherwise we're stuck discussing smaller issues like the Virus saves, and missing the elephant in the room.

Jasdoif
2017-08-29, 03:41 PM
I agree with Jasdoif that we need the spell list, at least a tentative one. Otherwise we're stuck discussing smaller issues like the Virus saves, and missing the elephant in the room.Or at least a general description. Something like "fear spells, damaging transmutations and cold-based evocations; all from the sorcerer list" would really help convey the intent.

BananaPhone
2017-08-29, 06:49 PM
I can't type much cos I'm posting from my phone, but what about using the Summoners spell progression for this class?

Gwynfrid
2017-08-29, 07:01 PM
I can't type much cos I'm posting from my phone, but what about using the Summoners spell progression for this class?

Oh, so the idea to make him a full caster is out? I think it's much better that way. As for the Summoner's progression: Why not. What you presently have isn't very far from it, anyway. It just maxes out at 5/level instead of 4. Not a huge difference.

What matters more is the spell list for the class, or at least a description of the types of spells you're aiming for.

And - but I repeat - I think you have to decide on what your main combat method is, before you go into further detail.

BananaPhone
2017-08-29, 07:30 PM
I don't have a precise list yet, but the general area's where going to be:
- Illusion spells (mirror image, mirage arcana, hypnotic pattern etc)
- Abjuration protection spells (protection against evil, resist energy, dispell)
- Debuffs (slow)
- Shadow evocation/conjuration
- Cold and Force evocation.
- Transmution creation spells.



The main combat method is to DoT creatures up and use their Summoned Monsters as meat shields to take the hits instead of party members.

Jasdoif
2017-08-29, 11:19 PM
...so the main combat is DoT, which doesn't work very well in the system; backed up by meat shielding, which doesn't work very well in the system.

Okay! At least I know what kinds of things need to be addressed :smalltongue:

First and foremost, your impending virus/soultear combination (virusoultear?) should be at-will and not cost void points. If this is your primary combat feature you want to feel okay throwing it at anything you want to hurt, not have to wonder if a target is worth spending a limited resource on.
Related to that, I think Voidpool use would benefit from streamlining: make everything that costs void points cost exactly one point (and be worth spending a point on), and find a replenishment mechanism that isn't hit point juggling (if a replenishment mechanism is even needed at all).
If summon meatshielding is to have a real chance of success, there will need to be enough of a reason not to ignore them and simply attack you instead.
Master and Slave looks close on why not attack you....You could possibly get away with something like adjusting it so that when you shift damage to a summon, it takes half the original and you take one quarter, so it's clearly a net loss to ignore the summon. (And if you remove the recharge-by-sacrificing-HP mechanic, I don't think you'd need to cap the damage transfer per day).
More interestingly, you could tie this back into the DoT thing and have the summons do bonus cold damage to creatures suffering from Virusoultear, so ignoring them is bound to be painful.
Seriously, get rid of the Freezing Abyss. If you want to make Virusoultear bypass all damage resistances, make it typeless. Doing something like "half force, half cold" could work too if you want the flavor (and want the force evocation spells to make thematic sense). But making it cold damage and then eliminating what the purpose of making it cold damage would be...looks like an awfully complicated way to say "Virusoultear deals typeless damage, and deals extra damage to creatures with the Fire subtype" more than anything else.
Changing Nexus Parasite into some sort of "you heal some damage when a creature dies while under the influence of Virusoultear" would be simpler to use/run, I think.

As for spellcasting...Only a couple things seem out of place to me.
Why does a class themed around Void nothingness have defensive buffs? Dispel magic ends things so I can see that one, but protection from evil?
Shadow conjuration and shadow evocation duplicate the effects of a spell chosen from a range of other spells, which...kind of undercuts having a limited spell list, since you'd need to know all those spells you could emulate to make the best use of it.

Gwynfrid
2017-08-30, 04:29 PM
I don't have a precise list yet, but the general area's where going to be:
- Illusion spells (mirror image, mirage arcana, hypnotic pattern etc)
- Abjuration protection spells (protection against evil, resist energy, dispell)
- Debuffs (slow)
- Shadow evocation/conjuration
- Cold and Force evocation.
- Transmution creation spells.


This is confusing, because it lacks a theme. You might as well say "a bit of everything except charm, necromancy and fire". As Jasdoif pointed out, shadow evocation/conjuration doesn't make a lot of sense. You need defensive spells, but they should be from your conjurations, not unrelated things like protection from energy.

I recommend tightening this up around the theme of the void. Here are things I can see being related to the void:
- Cold
- Negative energy
- Fear
- Darkness
- Conjuration: Calling, summoning, and teleportation.

Taking all the spells that are related to those items, and nothing else, would likely be more than enough.



The main combat method is to DoT creatures up and use their Summoned Monsters as meat shields to take the hits instead of party members.

This is clear. Good! I'm drawing the following conclusions:
- DoT shouldn't be overshadowed by massive instant damage spells in the spell list.
- On the other hand, we can't allow it to overshadow instant damage spells from other classes. That's where the balance is delicate.
- Summoned monsters don't need to be extra powerful. They just need to stay long enough to serve their defensive purpose.


First and foremost, your impending virus/soultear combination (virusoultear?) should be at-will and not cost void points. If this is your primary combat feature you want to feel okay throwing it at anything you want to hurt, not have to wonder if a target is worth spending a limited resource on.

I agree. Besides, as written your void pool is small and scales very slowly.


Related to that, I think Voidpool use would benefit from streamlining: make everything that costs void points cost exactly one point (and be worth spending a point on), and find a replenishment mechanism that isn't hit point juggling (if a replenishment mechanism is even needed at all).

I agree. I would suggest starting with a pool that only refreshes daily, not through some tricks. And make the features that use it count.


If summon meatshielding is to have a real chance of success, there will need to be enough of a reason not to ignore them and simply attack you instead.

Not sure about that. To me, the reason they're meatshields is that you have to attack them because they're in the way, and they're attacking you.


More interestingly, you could tie this back into the DoT thing and have the summons do bonus cold damage to creatures suffering from Virusoultear, so ignoring them is bound to be painful

Good idea, I like it.


Seriously, get rid of the Freezing Abyss. If you want to make Virusoultear bypass all damage resistances, make it typeless.

I agree, Freezing Abyss doesn't make sense. Untyped makes me very uncomfortable, but, if the damage total is like 1/2 of what you get with typed damage at the same level, then I can see it working. This lower damage compensates for the lack of resistance/immunity to it.


Doing something like "half force, half cold" could work too if you want the flavor (and want the force evocation spells to make thematic sense).

This would be the other way to do it, then allowing damage on a scale similar to that of typed attacks. I would say cold/negative more than cold/force, though.


Changing Nexus Parasite into some sort of "you heal some damage when a creature dies while under the influence of Virusoultear" would be simpler to use/run, I think.[/list]

This is a good idea, but removing Nexus Parasite altogether would be a valid solution too.

BananaPhone
2017-08-30, 05:51 PM
I'm not ignoring Gwyn - but a lot of what he said gets replicated here.


...so the main combat is DoT, which doesn't work very well in the system; backed up by meat shielding, which doesn't work very well in the system.

Okay! At least I know what kinds of things need to be addressed :smalltongue:


Yeah, I'm a glutton for punishment, it seems :smalltongue:.



First and foremost, your impending virus/soultear combination (virusoultear?) should be at-will and not cost void points. If this is your primary combat feature you want to feel okay throwing it at anything you want to hurt, not have to wonder if a target is worth spending a limited resource on.
Related to that, I think Voidpool use would benefit from streamlining: make everything that costs void points cost exactly one point (and be worth spending a point on), and find a replenishment mechanism that isn't hit point juggling (if a replenishment mechanism is even needed at all).

As to the virusoultear (heh), I do need to think of a combination of those two soon. Perhaps just joining the two into a single DoT that scales with level, and Voidpoints can be spent to modify in certain ways like reduction to saving throw, boost to damage, spreading to nearby enemies etc.

Making each ability 1 Voidpoint in cost would streamline things enormously. As to regenerating voidpoints - they start off with a relatively small number, but will be spending quite a few of them each combat (summoning spells, modifying Virusoultear). I do think the ability to regenerate them in some fashion would be apt - at the moment sacrificing HP to do so is thematically cool and synergistic with Nexus parasite. What are your thoughts?



If summon meatshielding is to have a real chance of success, there will need to be enough of a reason not to ignore them and simply attack you instead.
Master and Slave looks close on why not attack you....You could possibly get away with something like adjusting it so that when you shift damage to a summon, it takes half the original and you take one quarter, so it's clearly a net loss to ignore the summon. (And if you remove the recharge-by-sacrificing-HP mechanic, I don't think you'd need to cap the damage transfer per day).

Pretty much what Gwyn said - the meatshields are on the front line with the Big Stupid Fighters, and so prevent the enemy from physically being able to reach and attack you.

What you're saying could work though. The voidlock takes 1/4 of the intended damage, while the summoned minions take 1/2 of the damage - possibly divided among them if they have multiple summons out.


More interestingly, you could tie this back into the DoT thing and have the summons do bonus cold damage to creatures suffering from Virusoultear, so ignoring them is bound to be painful.[/list]

Ahh, I like that idea. Maybe summoned creatures only need to make Touch Attacks against those infected with Virusoultear; as motes of the void rot the target from within, it opens more of their essence to the abyss, thus allowing the summoned monsters to "reach out and touch them". Or maybe bonus damage.

Either way, it definitely binds the summoner angle in tighter.



Seriously, get rid of the Freezing Abyss. If you want to make Virusoultear bypass all damage resistances, make it typeless. Doing something like "half force, half cold" could work too if you want the flavor (and want the force evocation spells to make thematic sense). But making it cold damage and then eliminating what the purpose of making it cold damage would be...looks like an awfully complicated way to say "Virusoultear deals typeless damage, and deals extra damage to creatures with the Fire subtype" more than anything else.

Yes, you fellows have made the convincing point :smalltongue:.

Half Force, half Cold makes the most sense.

Half cold because, well, the "freezing" abyss. Half force because Force is considered the raw stuff of magic (http://www.d20pfsrd.com/bestiary/monster-listings/templates/force-creature-cr-1/), ready to be sculpted, which plays into the Voidlocks theme of being:

" Like an engineer placed at the centre of the great machine of creation, all the cogs and wheels of existence is exposed to the Voidlocks whim.

A driven and willful breed of spellcaster, Voidlocks are alien in their operation and often their demeanor. Cryptic almost by default, the Void-born plunge into the abyss in their quest for deeper knowledge of that unseen tapestry that binds the material planes together. "

So you're right; half force, half cold. Even if they encounter things like Undead with cold resist, the Force can still hurt them, and being infected with Virus makes more vulnerable to the voidlocks summoned minions. So cheerio - that works!


Changing Nexus Parasite into some sort of "you heal some damage when a creature dies while under the influence of Virusoultear" would be simpler to use/run, I think.


That could work.

It could also be changed so that you spend 1 Voidpoint to modify a casting of Virusoultear with NP: each round Virusoultear does damage, the Voidlock replenishes 1d2 Voidpoints. What are your thoughts?

If not, then Voidpoints costs could be removed altogether for base abilities: but when you do spend them, they significantly buff the spell that they're used to modify, but they replenish daily rather than by sacrificing HP.

So VP's need to be spent per ability and modulating spells and can be regenerated per encounter.
Or VP's don't need to be spent per ability, can only be regenerated once a day, but offer a significant alteration when they are spent.

Which route sounds better to do?


As for spellcasting...Only a couple things seem out of place to me.
Why does a class themed around Void nothingness have defensive buffs? Dispel magic ends things so I can see that one, but protection from evil?
Shadow conjuration and shadow evocation duplicate the effects of a spell chosen from a range of other spells, which...kind of undercuts having a limited spell list, since you'd need to know all those spells you could emulate to make the best use of it.

The general themes of the spell list are "Shadow" magic (Illusions, Shadow Conjuration/Evocation), Cold (Cold-based spells), Debuffs (Slow) and manipulating the raw stuff of magic (Force and Creation spells - even dispel magic is in there in that they're "undoing" magical manifestations). Gwyn mentioned Teleportation spells, which should be in there too (summoner and all that). I neglected to put Conjuration (Summoning) in there as it was a base ability via Master Summoner, mostly because they aren't traditional Conjurationists in that they're pulling up abyssal horrors. But strictly speaking, yes, Conjuration (summoning, teleportation) should be there too.

You're right that a number of defensive spells would be a stretch. I'll discard that idea.

Southern Cross
2017-08-31, 01:39 AM
Here is a list of the first six levels of the void elemental arcane school:
0th—guidance
1st—gravity bow, keen senses, shield, true strike
2nd—continual flame, haunting mists, invisibility, masterwork transformation, see invisibility, share memory
3rd—arcane sight, clairaudience/clairvoyance, dispel magic, nondetection, seek thoughts, tapestry’s embrace*, twilight knife
4th—minor creation, moonstruck, wandering star motes
5th—fabricate, major creation, mind fog, telepathic bond, teleport
6th—dispel magic (greater), legend lore, true seeing, mage’s lucubration.

*Editor’s Note
The spell listed as tapestry’s embrace doesn’t seem to exist, and it has been suggested that the spell call the void was originally called that name and was changed in editing. GMs are encouraged to use call the void as a 3rd-level Void Elementalist wizard spell.

Jasdoif
2017-08-31, 01:59 AM
As to the virusoultear (heh), I do need to think of a combination of those two soon. Perhaps just joining the two into a single DoT that scales with level, and Voidpoints can be spent to modify in certain ways like reduction to saving throw, boost to damage, spreading to nearby enemies etc.In the interests of DM sanity and general excitement, I'd recommend against having virusoultear (I hope the descriptor I came up with in five seconds doesn't stick :smalltongue: ) modified directly. Instead, go with instantaneous effects that apply at the same as you place virusoultear (a burst of damage as the void tears a brief hole in space), only works on targets under the effect of virusoultear (deliver a touch spell maybe), or ends virusoultear on a target to produce a more dramatic effect (a blast of lightning as the universe compensates for you cutting the suction into the Void the same way you might pop a balloon).

More fun to imagine than "the same but with more dice", at least, and easier to track.


Making each ability 1 Voidpoint in cost would streamline things enormously. As to regenerating voidpoints - they start off with a relatively small number, but will be spending quite a few of them each combat (summoning spells, modifying Virusoultear). I do think the ability to regenerate them in some fashion would be apt - at the moment sacrificing HP to do so is thematically cool and synergistic with Nexus parasite. What are your thoughts?Hmm....Well, with the slow scaling pool and you intending for them to gone through each combat, recovering the full pool between each encounter looks like what you'd want. Tome of Battle allowed martial adepts to automatically recover their expended manuevers at the end of an encounter, or after one minute outside of active combat; you could do something similar, throwing in some fluff about ritual-whatever. If you want to keep the blood-powered theme in the mechanics, you could use Constitution instead of Charisma when determining the size of the pool.

Keep in mind that if you go this route, your voidpool abilities are effectively at-will outside of combat; don't forget the potential for non-combat use.


Pretty much what Gwyn said - the meatshields are on the front line with the Big Stupid Fighters, and so prevent the enemy from physically being able to reach and attack you.While true, I've found there are two major ways the system undercuts the typical meatshield approach:
Since the round models taking six-second chunks of actions, waltzing around a meatshield's threatened area to get to the target behind them is usually as easy as a few extra squares of lateral movement. Depending on speed and if flight is an option, a meatshield might not even stall an attacker.
The strongest bruisers tend to be larger creatures; and larger creatures have more damage, more speed, and more reach. The kind of threat you'd ideally want a meatshield for, happen to have the advantageous mobility to get around such defenders...assuming they're not content to simply reach over your guardian to smack you upside the head :smalltongue:

If you don't think that's a problem, that's fine. I, however, think that if the class's intent is to have defender summons keep the enemy away from you while your DoTs are working on them, providing incentives for the enemy to not focus on you instead your summons is the way to go...or at the very least, have a fallback usage if you determine a summon isn't going to do the job after it's already been summoned. (Meatshields don't work so well against ranged attackers, for example.)


It could also be changed so that you spend 1 Voidpoint to modify a casting of Virusoultear with NP: each round Virusoultear does damage, the Voidlock replenishes 1d2 Voidpoints. What are your thoughts?Sounds like an almost guaranteed reservation of a void point solely to regain void points.

I was toying with the notion of something like "if a target dies while under the influence of virusoultear, you heal 3 hit points per hit die it had (up to your normal maximum). If you are at full hit points after this healing, you recover a void point (up to your normal maximum)." That's it: no overhead to set it up, and you won't feel bad about tormenting something weak for your buddies to fry since you'll probably get the void point back :smalltongue:


So VP's need to be spent per ability and modulating spells and can be regenerated per encounter.
Or VP's don't need to be spent per ability, can only be regenerated once a day, but offer a significant alteration when they are spent.

Which route sounds better to do?I kind of mentioned my thoughts about this above, but per encounter. Either could be made to work, but you already have per-day in the spellcasting, and I feel the warlock-y flavor of the voidpool might suffer if it's relegated to the same category as the spells.

Southern Cross
2017-09-30, 05:38 PM
I tend to agree with the last poster. Furthermore I think the virussoultear ability should be called Touch of the Void or Void Contamination.

Southern Cross
2017-09-30, 06:04 PM
Here is a possible spell list for Voidlocks.

0 - guidance, message, ray of frost
1st - air bubble, alter winds, damp powder, feather fall, gentle breeze, gravity bow, hydraulic push, icicle dagger, keen senses, marid's mastery, obscuring mist, shocking grasp, shield, true strike, touch of the sea, wave shield, windy escape
2nd - accelerate poison, aggressive thundercloud, continual flame, elemental speech, elemental touch, fog cloud, frigid touch, frost fall, glide, gust of wind, gusting sphere, haunting mists, invisibility, levitate, masterwork transformation, resist energy, river whip, see invisibility, share memory, slipstream, summon monster 2, unshakable chill, whispering wind
3rd - air geyser, aqueous orb, arcane sight, call the void, clairaudience/clairvoyance, cloak of winds, dispel magic, draconic reservoir, elemental aura, fly, gaseous form, hostile levitation, hydraulic torrent, lightning bolt, nondetection, protection from energy, resist energy, communal, seek thoughts, sleet storm, twilight knife, water breathing, wind wall
4th - absorbing inhalation, aggressive thundercloud, greater, ball lightning, cloud shape, detonate, dragon's breath, elemental body i, ice storm, miasmatic form, minor creation, moonstruck, protection from energy, communal, ride the waves, river of wind, shout, solid fog, summon monster 4, wandering star motes, wall of ice
5th - cloudkill, cone of cold, elemental body ii, fabricate, fickle winds, geyser, icy prison, lightning arc, major creation, mind fog, overland flight, planar adaptation, planar binding, lesser, suffocation, summon monster 5, telepathic bond, teleport, wind blades
6th - chain lightning, cold ice strike, dispel magic (greater), elemental body iii, fluid form, freezing sphere, ice crystal teleport, legend lore, path of the winds, planar binding, sirocco, summon monster 6, true seeing

Jasdoif
2017-10-05, 12:04 PM
Since we're here, this is what I came up with for combining Virus and Soultear:


LevelDamage
Per
RoundRounds
11d32
21d62
31d62
42d62
52d62
63d62
73d62
84d63
94d63
105d63
115d63
126d63
136d63
147d63
157d63
168d64
178d64
189d64
199d64
2010d64


The potential total is close to the combined damage of Virus over its whole duration and a single round of soultear.
Damage per round is 1d3 at first level, and (level/2, rounded down)d6 after that.
I'm not too thrilled about special casing level 1 like that, but 1d6 for 2 rounds means a total of 2d6 for an action at level 1; it could be misleading to new voidlock players. And 1d6 for 1 round is barely even damage-over-time.
Duration is two rounds, increasing to three rounds at level 8 and to four rounds at level 16.
Not coincidentally when Virus' damage increased....You could get away with bumping this back to 7 and 15, if you don't want the big total damage spikes that come from increasing the damage and duration on the same level.


It's a little sad at level 3 this way, so I'm thinking that's the level where "summons do bonus cold damage to virus-afflicted enemies" would kick in.

BananaPhone
2017-10-06, 09:14 PM
Oh wow, I get locked up at work and other posting obligations, and here I've completely neglected this!

Thanks for this guys, I'll look it over.

BananaPhone
2017-10-19, 04:36 AM
Did I say soon? Because I meant two weeks...yeah, I totally did...