Base Class Challenge XXXI Voting Thread

[Temotei]

Welcome to the voting thread for Base Class Challenge XXXI, Consumption of the Masses (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?461085-Base-Class-Contest-XXXI-Consumption-of-the-Masses-3-5)! Voting will consist of each voter giving a first, second, and third place vote for three separate base classes. Anyone can vote, and in fact, entrants must vote to qualify for victory.

A first place vote is worth three points, a second place vote is worth two points, and a third place vote is worth one point. You may not vote for your own class.

You are encouraged to include reason with your votes, though this is not absolutely required.

The class that ends up with the most points wins the challenge contest. Voting starts now and will continue until 23:59 (Central Standard Time USA/Canada; GMT-6) on January 29th.



Base Class
Author
1st
2nd
3rd
Total Points


Dnd Player (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20102430&postcount=3)
noob
1
0
1
4


Potion Maker (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20106044&postcount=4)
Jormengand
1
4
1
11


Cannibal (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20115360&postcount=5)
MrNobody
1
1
3
8


Big Game Hunter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20233074&postcount=7)
sengmeng
2
1
1
9


Blood Acolyte (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20250627&postcount=9) (Spell List (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20250637&postcount=10), Feats (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20250643&postcount=11))
Zaydos
2
1
1
9



Unfortunately, the magical glutton (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=20115543&postcount=6) is ineligible for voting.

[mantia]

1st Blood Acolyte. This is a really cool class. But it is Zaydos so that's par for the course. Seriously though it feels very vulnerable at lower levels but grows to something awesome later on.

2nd Potion Maker. This is a sort of augmented range wizard that seems really powerful with proper planning. One question. Can you throw 2 spells a turn when you have +10/+5 BA?

3rd Cannibal. This is interesting in that a combat oriented class can get very versatile depending on his diet. Also Vorpal teeth are too funny to ignore.

[noob]

1: big game hunter
2: Potion Maker
3: Cannibal
I do not really adhere with the blood acolyte for some reasons.

[MrNobody]

1st. Blood acolyte.
2nd: Big game hunter
3rd: Potion Maker

[Temotei]

Votes tallied.

[sengmeng]

1) potion maker, because I would play one.

2) cannibal, for playing the theme to the hilt

3) DnD player, for the humor

[Zaydos]

1st Cannibal - MrNobody: This doubles as my favorite and probably where I have the most specific critiques to make, since I liked it enough to go over with a thin comb.
Cannibalize Skill Bonus: Enhancement is an odd, though not wholly unheard of (Artificers can give it and there is an item for truename, and possibly Leaping Dragon Stance it's weird*), bonus to skill checks. Usually they are Competence (which is pretty much just enhancement for skills), Morale, Insight, or Luck. While I find this odd, and worth mentioning, it isn't necessarily bad. This is more a "was this a deliberate choice to use something oddball" question than anything.
Cannibalize - Brain: Do you lose the enhancement bonus to Int checks before the take 20 Knowledge check or does it apply to the Knowledge check?
Cannibalize - Face: I am wary of giving a 3rd level spell at 1st level especially when you can refresh it multiple times per day. That said you need to haul a dead body with you and the limitations make it work until later and when it becomes a problem I will mention, first though
Consume Aspect: Do you take the average ability scores of their species as normal for Alter Self? Does it still have the racial HD limit of Alter Self? Is it closer to a druid's Thousand Faces than Alter Self?
Cannibal Way: Two problems here, 1 Gourmet is much much better than Brutal. Second is that limit that kept the rechargeable Suggestion contained is removed by Gourmet. Now that isn't completely horrible, but it is worth noting as a pretty powerful ability at 4th-7th level.
Consume Extraordinary Ability: As a note as written this lets you get most Martial Maneuvers and Stances (explicitly class granted Ex abilities). In general this can be pretty powerful with a Gourmet. As a second note Sneak Attack is untagged and only assumed to be Ex... which is the same logic used for assuming Spellcasting is an Ex ability, and indicates you can pick up a fighter's bonus feats this way.
Cannibal Way II: Brutal Cannibal's ability now lets it compete with Gourmet's lower level one, it's actually theoretically better, though you still as written have to carry the whole corpse and can't just rip off the head to eat later. Gourmet's ability pushes it to real power with Consume Ex ability, consume skill and the like, however.
Consume Spell-like Ability: This one could be a problem with an aasimar, tiefling, or other Outsider cannibal. For one you eat a pit fiend to get a free Wish, and then you do that 5 more times as a Gourmet. This is a minor complaint, but still worth noting. I'd actually suggest disallowing selecting any spell-like ability with a costly material component or an XP cost as a spell; while Outsider cannibals can still do horrible things with this if Outsiders show up it cuts out the worst abuse. Also of note it can give you invocations as written.
Consume Magic: Using this on Stances, Maneuvers, and Invocations is strictly worse than using Consume Ex/Su/SlA for the same purpose. I am curious if you were supposed to be explicitly unable to get such abilities through those other versions.

*Leaping Dragon Stance gives a +10 ft enhancement bonus to Jump checks. I read that as +10 ft to total distance but their phrasing is weird, and as nothing else gives a bonus to distance enhancement is redundant there. How did that book make it past editing?

Those are the specific balance critiques and points are saw that needed work. Now for the class as a whole. Like I said I like it. I love the concept, and it probably fits the theme best of any class made for it. So kudos.Even with the above complaints I'd allow it in a game with some caveats depending upon your race and what sort of game it's going to be (gourmet is great fun for political infiltration game, but in a dungeon crawler where you're unlikely to meet humanoid foes it requires little murder sidequests or Cannibal Way II Brutal Cannibal and graverobbing sidequests; and a tiefling gormet in a Blood War campaign might be OP). It is one that definitely requires talking to the DM abount, and might should allow you to pick up a few types to get 1/2 bonus and Consume Ex/Consume Magic from (Su and SlA are much more likely to actually cause trouble with non-humanoid creatures than those two, while those two are the strongest with humanoids), though you'd probably want to give such abilities at later levels (as a quick I'd say 11th and 20th for those abilities with secondary types). That way you're not useless if it doesn't focus on your type, but you still get around the potential problems of copying a high CR outsider's SlAs (at-wills can be crazy nasty on those even without getting into Pit Fiend's 1/year Wish).

Overall though the class is mostly well balanced and interesting. It's cannibalism bonus makes it an interesting skill monkey, with Gourmet being lovely in a social game and Brutal giving you the ability to make a combat focused character (otherwise it's really worse than rogue at fighting). It might could even use Full BAB depending upon desired balance point, but that'd take playtesting and really depend upon the availability of high level classed humanoids or being a type with some nice higher level foes. And now I want to look into low LA dragons for a cannibal dragon.

2nd Potion Maker - Jorm: I have a lot less to say about this class. It's a neat idea, decent application, really great for nova with handing out potions, nice little action economy abilities which let everyone play. Ultimately, though, it's a fix list caster that you have to ban spells from to make it play on the same tier as other fist list casters (I feel less bad as a DM doing that to sorcerer style) and even then has much greater versatility. When compared to tier 2 casters it has trouble comparing to one that plays to the hilt, and is much better than one that plays down to a level where they play well with non-casters. Which leaves it sort of kind of awkwardly there (same is probably true of Blood Acolyte). I'd allow it, with my standard banned/nerfed spells list (Polymorph line being notable) and probably remove Bestow Curse and Slay Living from its list (Bestow Curse is only balanced by being melee touch, Slay Living is literally Finger of Death with a touch range). Actually originally I was going to leave this as "boring but practical" but after Cannibal I'm in full critique mode, and must say it's spell list needs to be gone over again with touch spells looked at more carefully, and also you need to clarrify how spells such as Slow and Haste which normally affect multiple targets but not in an area work, do they (like with regular potions) become single target? In that case you might want to consider whether their level should be lowered.

3rd The Big Game Hunter - Sengmeng: Lovely idea, similar to the Cannibal, and in fact fixes a lot of the "this is only functional for certain games" however... the Hunters Tricks are ultimately multiple time/encounter abilities which are rechargeable on a scale similar to martial maneuvers. Why do I bring this up? Because they are much better than martial maneuvers. Auto-crit puts your Hunter's Trick II True Shot between the 4th level manuver Ruby Nightmare Blade and the 8th level maneuver Diamond Nightmare Blade, and that's before getting into your vastly attack bonus, ability to use it as a part of a full attack, and ability to use it at a range. As a whole the class almost automatically pushes itself into a binary "it's immune to me or it dies" style of rocket tag, like an ubercharger but with far fewer limitations, which is just not a good place for a class to be. The Hunter's Tricks need to be looked at, nerfed, and actually I would suggest making them more non-combat abilities instead of combat abilities, letting the ~+15 to hit, 70 ft sneak attack, and hide in plain sight work as the main combat buff and maybe make a few mild combat Hunter's Tricks (something like Add Dex to damage). I would also note as an ability that recharges with having an encounter you don't want hours/level (yours or your opponents') buffs they just become a constant ability that doesn't play with the resource management. Final question: If I reduce a foe to -2 and someone else coup de graces them is that still my kill and what about vice versa?

[Temotei]

Votes tallied. Jormengand still needs to vote.

[bookguy]

1st-Big Game Hunter
This is far and away my favorite. I agree with Zaydos that there are some balance issues that need to be resolved, but they can be fixed. I could see myself playing this class.

2nd-Potion Maker
I would allow this in a game, although I'd be worried about supporting the 5 minute adventuring day.

3rd-Blood Acolyte

[Temotei]

Votes tallied. One day left.

[Jormengand]

Okay, I'm going to give my review of all these classes:

DnD Player: Okay, so first, you need to go over everything you write and make sure it's written with vaguely proper grammar. "I must get more manual" with no quotation marks, which should be "I must get more manuals." You've barely put any full stops in.

What concerns me is that you can use your dips to call mystic theurge 10 times, and use it to advance your (Nonexistent) Ur Priest and Sublime Chord casting, then call Slayer 6 times, using it to advance your also-nonexistent ardent manifesting, then take Practiced Manifester, for a character who ends up having ninth-level arcane spells and divine spells, and 5th-level powers.

Capstone Progression is fun. I'll grab a special mount at first level, meaning that I'm just gonna go ahead and ride a creature with a higher CR than me, then at 10th level I'll grab the monstrously powerful Dragon Apotheosis for a nice +12 strength +2 constitution +2 intelligence +4 charisma, +8 natural armour, and a bucket of other neat abilities. I mean there are better things I could grab, but we'll go easy for now.

I mean, or you could just go for the easy option of getting 9th-level spells at level one in the first place, which I don't know why you thought was a good idea. Oh, and if you try using this for utterances, what happens? Or bard spells, for that matter? Do I get 9th-level bard slots like the ones you get from that epic feat that are only for metamagic? But truename metamagic doesn't increase the slot because there are no slots.

Incidentally, Lost Feats interacts really weirdly if you multiclass, because you lose feats you were never entitled to in the first place.

I want to like this idea, but the execution ruins it.

Cannibal: The first thing that jumps out at me is that it's really annoying to play if you're a humanoid and end up fighting dragons and undead. The next thing that jumps out at me is that some of the abilities are really oddly balanced: Fortitude saves are fine and dandy, but you want a bonus on will saves? That'll end the effect. Also, I don't like the permanent temporary hit points.

Consume (Ex) Ability should be rethought. I don't like the idea of stealing just any ex ability. Oh, I just ate this dragon disciple, I NOW HAVE WINGS! By brutally devouring this paladin, I gained an aura of good! Same with Consume (Su) ability.

Consume Feat is nice if you want to do the dark chaos shuffle, but more to the point it seems as though it could be dangerous to let you do it.

Consume Magic is odd because it allows you to steal utterances and invocations... but consume SLA already lets you do that.

So I guess it's meant to steal people's abilities, but it could be a dead class against anything nonhumanoid.

Big Game Hunter: Okay, riddle me this: which is harder to eat: a particularly nasty tiger or a creature made of solid iron? The hit die advancement is weird; at low levels, it's easy to eat humans and hard to eat constructs, at higher levels the tables are turned.

Many of the tricks are a bit... meh. The ones that deal damage don't stack up to your RSA damage. Speed Shooter I wouldn't be surprised to see as a feat. Lucky Shot is almost insultingly bad. I don't know if you intend killer's grace not to stack, but it doesn't.

On the flipside, Barrage is an epic feat on crack. Nondetection is a highish-level slayer feature. Neither is a jaw-dropper, but they are far better than the others of the same level.

The BGH also kinda ends up failing all his fort saves at high enough levels, while autopassing at lower levels, which you may see as a problem.

Blood Acolyte: Twenty-two cantrips?

Augury of blood can't be used four times per day at 17th level, because spilling that much blood in one day would kill you horribly.

The main problem is the amount of CON burn you take. For example, at first level, a sorcerer can usually cast 4 first-level spells. You could do that, but if you did, you would burn 8 points of constitution, putting you straight into the danger zone. At 20th level, you get about 3 free ninths with Greater Sanguine Substitution, sure, but if you try to cast out a sorcerer's full array of spells, you will kill yourself doing so.

The auxiliary problem, however, is that ability burn is a type of ability damage (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/psionic/powers/psychofeedback.htm), so you can make yourself immune to it easily enough. Which flips the problem straight on its head: you then have infinite casting of any level you can cast. Oh, what's that, at-will Dominate Monster as a full action from level 1? Don't mind if I do. I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my new pet dragon.

Overall: Well...

Two of you created a class that can use ninth-level spells at first level, so there's that. At the same time, the Big Game Hunter seems the least fun of the classes, despite (or perhaps because of) being probably the best-balanced.

Hmm.

Let's do something crazy.

D&D Player gets first place. What? Okay, okay, let's reel back through this. You've made a class that makes me feel good about rooting through books and finding random things to fit together without rhyme or reason. Execution is absolutely dire, but I kinda want to remake this class, which means that the idea was one that inspired me. So well done. Bloody well done.
Blood Acolyte gets second. I looked back at the issues with it and then realised they were all either numerical, or forgetting to make the burn unpreventable (or more likely not knowing how burn works).
Cannibal gets third. I was tempted to to give third to BGH just to flip it off in a "Ha ha, I'm gonna win by 1 point" kind of way, but I actually prefer this class. It's kinda similar to my usurper (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?475807-The-Usurper-%28Class-in-30-minutes-PEACH%29) only you have to eat things to get their power. So yeah, I like the concept. Execution is... shoddy and weird. But it holds itself together well enough, just about.
Big Game Hunter is a fine class, it just missed out on the originality and "This is cool, I want to play it" of the other classes. I mean, if it helps, it's the only one I would let someone actually play in my game. :smalltongue: