How Good Should Class Features Be to Make Up for a bad Class chassis?

[Almarck]

theory crafting.

So here's a question. How good should the class features of a hypothetical class be in order to make up for....


2 skill points plus intelligence bonus per level.
no class skills except for perception
low base attack bonus progression.
no Good Saves.
No Caster Level or ability to cast spells. or perform other types of spells system including being a martial initiator or psionic

[Der_DWSage]

It gets perception as a class skill? It's fine as is, no need to do anything.

In all seriousness, a chassis like that needs serious class abilities-on par with 9 level casting, honestly. I mean, you're basically talking about a Commoner chassis, which is worse than a Wizard. Slightly worse, because at least commoners get a few decent skills.

>If they have no skills, they're not covering a skillmonkey niche, which means that the class abilities need a way to contribute out of combat.
>If they have low BAB, they're probably not covering a frontliner niche, which means the class abilities need a way to contribute to combat-preferably from a range.
>You didn't mention it, but I'm assuming they get few/no weapon or armor proficiencies either. Which means the class abilities need to contribute defensively, even if that defense is 'I can contribute from a range instead of from melee.'
>No good saves means that their defenses are worse and worse, so they probably get some kind of 'recover from status ailment' type of mechanic, if not another defensive one.

Otherwise, you basically end up with 'victim' as your chassis.

[Almarck]

It gets perception as a class skill? It's fine as is, no need to do anything.


11/10. PLZ NERF.

Was actually going to add Craft and Profession as class skills but was cooking.



In all seriousness, a chassis like that needs serious class abilities-on par with 9 level casting, honestly. I mean, you're basically talking about a Commoner chassis, which is worse than a Wizard. Slightly worse, because at least commoners get a few decent skills.



Yup, that was kinda where I got this idea from.




>If they have no skills, they're not covering a skillmonkey niche, which means that the class abilities need a way to contribute out of combat.
>If they have low BAB, they're probably not covering a frontliner niche, which means the class abilities need a way to contribute to combat-preferably from a range.
>You didn't mention it, but I'm assuming they get few/no weapon or armor proficiencies either. Which means the class abilities need to contribute defensively, even if that defense is 'I can contribute from a range instead of from melee.'
>No good saves means that their defenses are worse and worse, so they probably get some kind of 'recover from status ailment' type of mechanic, if not another defensive one.

Otherwise, you basically end up with 'victim' as your chassis.

Yup. Well aware. Which is why I took it here to see what other people think would need to be given to make something like this even playable or fun.

I should have also mention d4/d6 hit dice, but that's pretty much implied anyways.

One idea I had to cover the low hp, and no armor or weapon proficiencies was to give this class what is essentially a scaling ablative force field

[Celestia]

I'm not sure what you can do. Commoner with wizard casting is still worse than a wizard, and your class doesn't even get as much as commoner. You probably need something better than full spellcasting then.

[Almarck]

I'm not sure what you can do. Commoner with wizard casting is still worse than a wizard, and your class doesn't even get as much as commoner. You probably need something better than full spellcasting then.

Technically, it doesn't have to be better than Full Casting, it just has to be enough that the class is worth playing. Also, no point in trying to compete with a Tier A/1 Class without a really beefy subsystem to back it up.

It should at least have a function that it could do well and not be boring the play.

[Inevitability]

Well, you could have its class features directly counteract the chassis. Stuff like ignoring non-proficiency penalties, getting to make two full attacks a round, targeting touch rather than regular AC and having an unarmed AC bonus, combined with some abilities frequently used in martial fixes (ability to pierce magical defenses, movement that doesn't intervene with full attacks, utility abilities) would make it a reasonable warrior. Making it tier 4 that way wouldn't be hard.

[Venger]

Well, you could have its class features directly counteract the chassis. Stuff like ignoring non-proficiency penalties, getting to make two full attacks a round, targeting touch rather than regular AC and having an unarmed AC bonus, combined with some abilities frequently used in martial fixes (ability to pierce magical defenses, movement that doesn't intervene with full attacks, utility abilities) would make it a reasonable warrior. Making it tier 4 that way wouldn't be hard.

then I'm just going to dip it as a good class.

[GilesTheCleric]

I think as long as its class features give it something to do beyond the base game mechanics (special combat actions, regular attacks, regular skills, etc), it'd be fine. It wouldn't necessarily be the strongest nor most versatile class, but it would have a reason for existing.

[Celestia]

Technically, it doesn't have to be better than Full Casting, it just has to be enough that the class is worth playing. Also, no point in trying to compete with a Tier A/1 Class without a really beefy subsystem to back it up.

It should at least have a function that it could do well and not be boring the play.
I suppose, but I can't think of anything off the top of my head that would work.


Well, you could have its class features directly counteract the chassis. Stuff like ignoring non-proficiency penalties, getting to make two full attacks a round, targeting touch rather than regular AC and having an unarmed AC bonus, combined with some abilities frequently used in martial fixes (ability to pierce magical defenses, movement that doesn't intervene with full attacks, utility abilities) would make it a reasonable warrior. Making it tier 4 that way wouldn't be hard.
If you make a class with a horrible chassis and then give it a boat load of class features that only serve to eliminate the relevant penalties, then what was the point in giving it the poor chassis to begin with?

[John Longarrow]

Are you trying to make Undead into a class? Because this is how you get undead as a class... :D

[Tuvarkz]

This is more me commenting on the concept rather than providing help, but imho, trying to make this kind of chassis work necessitates, like mentioned before, stuff that directly counteracts said chassis's weakness, making it kind of moot to have a weak chassis in the first place. Seems like bad design to me.

[OldTrees1]

It depends on what the class is going to be doing because the chassis has greater or lesser impact depending on the focus of the class. In ascending order:
A caster does not care about their chassis
An initiator cares about attack bonus but that is different from BAB and uses skills for versatility
A martial cares about attack bonus and the 1st iterative attack(BAB +6) and uses skills for versatility
A skill monkey cares about # of skills that they can get up to a skill bonus threshold

So if you start with a perfectly designed class of each of those 4 kinds:
Changing the caster chassis to the min chassis requires no alterations.
Changing the initiator chassis to the min chassis requires giving it more attack bonus and more versatility maneuvers.
Changing the martial chassis to the min chassis requires giving it more attack bonus, an extra targets class feature, and some versatility class features (Warhulk is a good example of 1 & 2 with its +2 Str / level and its hit multiple squares features)
Changing a skill monkey to the min chassis is hard. The # of skill points they hand gave them a granularity that was quite useful as design architecture goes. They will have to spread their points much thinner across their skills, so they will need some on demand skill bonus class features.

[Inevitability]

If you make a class with a horrible chassis and then give it a boat load of class features that only serve to eliminate the relevant penalties, then what was the point in giving it the poor chassis to begin with?

The first post said it had to be present. :smalltongue:

More seriously, there's other, less blatant, examples of classes making up for their own penalties. Battle Dancers and Monks offset their lack of armor proficiencies with an unarmed AC bonus. Paladins patch up their saving throws with Divine Grace. Rogues deal good damage despite their medium BAB thanks to Sneak Attack.

[ATHATH]

Perhaps a more though-provoking question: What would bring this class up to Tier 3 (and not higher than that)?

[ErebusVonMori]

I don't see what everyone's complaining about, WotC would probably call that the monk 2.0, no class features needed.

[Der_DWSage]

Well...let's see. It helps to have a direction to go in. 'Write a story about a knight that saves a dragon from a princess' is much easier than 'Write about anything' after all.

If it's meant to be a melee combatant, it needs to be SAD, and to do interesting things with its attacks. I'm mostly thinking of the Sage from Spheres of Might here-do something along the lines of adding Wisdom to AC, attack rolls, and damage, allowing it to make touch attacks OR inflict status effects on enemies, and give it Improved Unarmed Strike. Outside of battle, they use their wisdom/martial prowess not for their own sake, but are better at aiding their allies. (Perception checks to aid another, granting larger bonuses than normal.)

If it's meant to be a jack-of-all-trades, then the first thing it needs is skills. Or a way to spontaneously gain skills. Perhaps something like the Medium from Pathfinder with fewer weird restrictions. Able to adapt to different spirits as the situation develops, granting themselves different abilities as the day goes on.

I could see it being the chassis for a healer-type, able to recover exceedingly large amounts of health, grant temporary HP, recover allies from status effects, grant buffs, and otherwise be a White Mage. White Mages don't need anything offensive, many would like to have a cloth-wearing divine caster, and their chassis just makes them something to defend, rather than something to worry over. I'd suggest adding Heal as a class skill, and keying most of their abilities to that.

I could see things like that working with the chassis you say, but the boring answer is 'You need to add spells*.' With Spells* meaning a list of flexible, powerful abilities that allow them to stand on par with those that have actual class features.

[Celestia]

The first post said it had to be present. :smalltongue:

More seriously, there's other, less blatant, examples of classes making up for their own penalties. Battle Dancers and Monks offset their lack of armor proficiencies with an unarmed AC bonus. Paladins patch up their saving throws with Divine Grace. Rogues deal good damage despite their medium BAB thanks to Sneak Attack.
Divine Grace and Sneak Attack aren't making up for weaknesses. The AC bonus is (or at least attempts to), but that is excusable because it's part of the aesthetics. A class with poor everything and class features to give good everything is just a waste of time.

[OldTrees1]

Perhaps a more though-provoking question: What would bring this class up to Tier 3 (and not higher than that)?

Which kind of Tier 3 would you like?
A martial warrior?
A skill monkey?
something else?

[Almarck]

This is a test mostly for the purposes of experimentation... so all of them are valid


I'm not seriously planning on making a class, atleast not yet. There's no theme or direction given, because it is an open ended building question.

Though I suppose for the purpose of building, we will need themes or a goal.


So we'll have 2 ideals here:


Let's say this would be a generally party support class that is not generally meant for fighting but has some options if it really has to contribute.

And second class built on that's meant to be some important combat role such as tank or DPS.

[John Longarrow]

How about giving it different "Paths" that go through undead abilities?

Course you'd want to give it a D12 for HP though.

[Almarck]

How about giving it different "Paths" that go through undead abilities?

Course you'd want to give it a D12 for HP though.


As a though, you can cheat arround needing to give it good hit dice by having it use d4/d6's but give it temporary hitpoints via some method.

[Bucky]

Slap on Wildshape and lvlx4 temp HP whenever initiative's rolled or with each Wildshape and you've got at least a decent T4, probably creeping into T3.

[Remuko]

How about a Luck class? It has terrible saves, skills, and attack bonus but it gets a Luck-style theme and abilities that allow them to accomplish combat and skill monkey still stuff thru sheer "luck". Like rerolls and luck bonuses to things and "Automatic Natural 20's on certain rolls X/day scaling with level" etc. I think you could make at least a tier 3-4 class like that.

[Lans]

What about the ability to obtain the chasis of nearby creatures?


This is pretty close to what an incarnate is.

[Almarck]

What about the ability to obtain the chasis of nearby creatures?


This is pretty close to what an incarnate is.


... What kind of Incarnate are you looking at?

[Lans]

... What kind of Incarnate are you looking at?

I meant what the post is asking for, not the taking of chasis. The Chasis thing was a mutants and masterminds thing

[Celestia]

How about a Luck class? It has terrible saves, skills, and attack bonus but it gets a Luck-style theme and abilities that allow them to accomplish combat and skill monkey still stuff thru sheer "luck". Like rerolls and luck bonuses to things and "Automatic Natural 20's on certain rolls X/day scaling with level" etc. I think you could make at least a tier 3-4 class like that.
In the end, though, the only difference between a +8 attack bonus and a +4 attack bonus plus a +4 luck bonus is just the extra complication. Maybe if the fluff was good you could do something with that, but a character who is simply really lucky is more often than not dull and uninteresting. Plus, there's no stopping someone from making that character, anyways. Maybe your +8 attack bonus is from luck rather than skill.


What about the ability to obtain the chasis of nearby creatures?


This is pretty close to what an incarnate is.
Now that would actually be interesting. In fact, that's brilliant! I think I'm going to make that class, myself.

[Almarck]

In the end, though, the only difference between a +8 attack bonus and a +4 attack bonus plus a +4 luck bonus is just the extra complication. Maybe if the fluff was good you could do something with that, but a character who is simply really lucky is more often than not dull and uninteresting. Plus, there's no stopping someone from making that character, anyways. Maybe your +8 attack bonus is from luck rather than skill.


Now that would actually be interesting. In fact, that's brilliant! I think I'm going to make that class, myself.

maybe have it steal from allies as well. flexible options that way

[Vizzerdrix]

So you are making an onion knight? Then do as the onion knight do and give nothing until 20th level, but then, give everything.

[Remuko]

So you are making an onion knight? Then do as the onion knight do and give nothing until 20th level, but then, give everything.

so d4 hp 1/2 BAB all poor saves and 2+int sp/lvl with only the OP's listed class skills from lvl 1-19.

Lvl 20: d12 hp, recalc all prior hp rolls as d12s. total BAB improves 1/1, saves become as monk, proficient with all armor weapons and shields (even exotic), ignore spellfailure from armor and shields. skill points are retroactively recalculated at 8+int per lvl (x4 at lvl 1) and every skill in existence is a class skill. It also gets full arcane and divine spellcasting as a 20th level caster (choose which arcane and divine class to emulate for this upon reaching level 20, effects stat used for spells spells known if applicable etc).

Sounds hilarious.

[Vizzerdrix]

so d4 hp 1/2 BAB all poor saves and 2+int sp/lvl with only the OP's listed class skills from lvl 1-19.

Lvl 20: d12 hp, recalc all prior hp rolls as d12s. total BAB improves 1/1, saves become as monk, proficient with all armor weapons and shields (even exotic), ignore spellfailure from armor and shields. skill points are retroactively recalculated at 8+int per lvl (x4 at lvl 1) and every skill in existence is a class skill. It also gets full arcane and divine spellcasting as a 20th level caster (choose which arcane and divine class to emulate for this upon reaching level 20, effects stat used for spells spells known if applicable etc).

Sounds hilarious.

Add in your choice of a familiar, mount, or animal companion and call it a day :smallbiggrin:

[Almarck]

It's be sure funny... but I don't know if it's even reasonable to play one going by that.

[Endarire]

Casters do care about their chassis. (Everyone does.) It's just a matter of degree and context.

[Lans]

+1 insight bonus to AC and attack roles per level.
Extra attacks
Extra ability points

[Dagroth]

Charm Monster (EX) as an immediate action. Save DC = 10+(class level x 2) + Cha. Duration = 1 day x (Class Level).

Amnesia (EX). Save DC = 10+(class level x 2) + Cha. Effect happens automatically when Charm Monster fades, causing the target to forget the entire time they were charmed.

[Celestia]

Charm Monster (EX) as an immediate action. Save DC = 10+(class level x 2) + Cha. Duration = 1 day x (Class Level).

Amnesia (EX). Save DC = 10+(class level x 2) + Cha. Effect happens automatically when Charm Monster fades, causing the target to forget the entire time they were charmed.
Dominate monster would be more appropriate if you're trying to duplicate Lelouch.

[BaronDoctor]

If the chassis is garbage and the goal is a party support character, let's see what we can do here.

Name: Transcendent Spirit

Transcend (Su): You have transcended your physical limitations and discarded your former husk. Apply the Ghost template without any special attacks and gain the Outsider type with alignment subtype(s). Your ability to be visible and audible on the Material Plane is affected by magic-suppressing effects. You are immune to charm and compulsion effects. You're a Force Ghost, more or less. I'm sure someone could word it better, but this gets the point across.

See Through New Eyes (Ex): You may use the Perception skill in the place of all Knowledge skills, including for the purpose of qualification. Akin to the Ancestral Knowledge feat, allowing you to use that Perception skill because it's all you've got.

Transcendent Insight (Ex): Gain Knowledge Devotion as a bonus feat. Yes I'm going somewhere with this.

Shared Wisdom (Ex): You may share any bonus affecting you with (Wisdom mod) allies, minimum 1, as a standard action. The allies must be able to hear or see you to receive the bonus. This is a mind-affecting effect. A pseudo-bardic effect which uses the perception-as-knowledge and knowledge devotion things.

Transcendent Knowledge (Ex): As the Archivist's Dark Knowledge class feature, except you gain a number of uses per encounter that an archivist of your level would have per day. What you likely spend your time doing in combat encounters.

Clouder of Minds (Su): As a standard action, you may make an opposed Perception check against an enemy. On a success, you apply insight penalty equal to 1/4 your Perception check to the target's next attack roll, skill check, or ability check (your choice). Out of combat utility.

Special: If you take a level in another class, you lose all abilities from this class permanently. Because at this point you're almost a fiat character anyway.

I think that might get you to T3-4 as a support character with that chassis.

[Celestia]

What about the ability to obtain the chasis of nearby creatures?


This is pretty close to what an incarnate is.

Now that would actually be interesting. In fact, that's brilliant! I think I'm going to make that class, myself.
Class complete (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21853405&postcount=249)

[kuhaica]

Class complete (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21853405&postcount=249)

And so. The Princess did it. And made a class I wouldn't mind abusing playing.

[ExLibrisMortis]

A bit late to the party, but Wild Shape was invented for this. A MoMF ranger with an all-bad chassis is still pretty good.

Classes that are still good with an all-bad chassis: Thrallherd (even without manifesting), War Hulk (hey, you'd actually gain base attack), Fiend of Possession (?), Dragonfire Adept.

[Soranar]

How about:

-for each level in this class, gain +1 to all stats.

-At level 4 and every 4 levels afterwards you may take 1 extra standard action per day as an immediate action

-At level 10 you can take 10 on all skills (including UMD and UPD)

-At level 15 you gain perfect flight equal to your land speed

-At level 20 double all your STATS

[Celestia]

How about:

-for each level in this class, gain +1 to all stats.

-At level 4 and every 4 levels afterwards you may take 1 extra standard action per day as an immediate action

-At level 10 you can take 10 on all skills (including UMD and UPD)

-At level 15 you gain perfect flight equal to your land speed

-At level 20 double all your STATS
I'm assuming by "stats," you mean ability scores. This is absolutely ridiculous, though. Even if you start with a 3 in every ability, at level 20, you'd be up to 56 in one ability and 46 in the others, possibly even higher depending on how you rule that doubling interacting with inherent bonuses. If you start with average 10s, you'd go up to 60 with one at 70. This is just horridly broken.

[Morphic tide]

Well, an all-minimum chassis of 1/2 BAB, all bad saves, d4 HD, no class skills, 2+int skill points per level and no proficiencies can still be made good. The answer to the question of "how?" is to turn the horrid stuff into an advantage or bypass it altogether.

What Celestia did is one way to bypass it, but my ideal bypass would be a variation of a homebrew class I saw a while back which is basically a full party of t4s and t3s in one character.

Basically, you make a bundle of t4 classes for extremely specific tasks with little to no capacity to do anything outside of exactly one trick taken far enough to be useful, then you have the class summon or wield the abilities of these classes.

For instance, you can make a Healer that has a Lay on Hands type ability, probably ranged or AoE, and a small selection of damage prevention abilities fueled by the Lay on Hands based pool to do the healing and damage prevention, with a clean form of healing exactly as much as needed. Then, you can make a tanky setup which acts mostly as ablative HP for the group in some way, probably with a Shield Other type of mechanic with damage prevention of it's own that stops targets from dealing damage.

It kinda violates the principal of the matter, but the catch is that the actual PC is exactly as vulnerable as the setup of "worst chassis with standard setups possible" would result in, so most of the effort goes into keeping the keystone alive.

[ATHATH]

Class complete (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=21853405&postcount=249)
A few flaws that I can see:

Even though you can only take class features from one guy at a time, there's no limit to how many times you can steal class features from him. You can basically spend a few rounds to copy ALL of the class features of another party member, while keeping your own. This gets even more insane at level 10+, when you can walk around with all of the class features of the entire party simultaneously.

Since spellcasters don't lose slots that you "steal" from them, you can duplicate spells quite easily. A palace of Walls of Iron constructed in an hour or so, anyone?

This class is insane as a dip, just for that at-will, save-and-still-lose, stun-lock touch attack that's gained at FIRST LEVEL, and that's not even considering the ability-copying riders that it has (receive personal-range buffs from allied spellcasters!). If the stuns and stuff were gained later, it would probably be fine (because martials need nice things), but this is WAY too soon.

[tedcahill2]

The point of this question must be eluding me, but to attempt to answer it, "How Good Should Class Features Be to Make Up for a bad Class chassis?" very very good.

Class Feature:

Slowly but Surly (1st Level): Slowly but surly you become amazing at everything. You gain DR X/-, SR 10+X, and a +X (yes unnamed) bonus to attack rolls, saving throws, damage rolls, AC, skill checks, caster level (arcane and divine), manifester level, and martial initiator level, where X is equal to your level in the most useless class chassis ever.

[Almarck]

The point of this question must be eluding me, but to attempt to answer it, "How Good Should Class Features Be to Make Up for a bad Class chassis?" very very good.

Class Feature:

Slowly but Surly (1st Level): Slowly but surly you become amazing at everything. You gain DR X/-, SR 10+X, and a +X (yes unnamed) bonus to attack rolls, saving throws, damage rolls, AC, skill checks, caster level (arcane and divine), manifester level, and martial initiator level, where X is equal to your level in the most useless class chassis ever.

That's way too overpowered I feel like.

And I did specify not having direct access to caster levels...

Also, there is no point. It's mostly an experiment to see what people think would be neccesary to make a class worthwhile to play, if given one of the most horribly underperforming chassis imaginable.

[Morphic tide]

That's way too overpowered I feel like.

And I did specify not having direct access to caster levels...

Also, there is no point. It's mostly an experiment to see what people think would be neccesary to make a class worthwhile to play, if given one of the most horribly underperforming chassis imaginable.

Well, the key is making the chassis not matter. Either by stealing features, like Celestia did, or make the class have something that renders the chassis irrelevant, like being based on Synthesist Summoner or having Wildshape.

The lack of any of the major subsystems is a big hit, but it forces creativity. Ablative HP makes a d4 hit die irrelevant, attack bonuses make BAB largely irrelevant, certain abilities can substitute for saves and so on. But that's not exactly creative, it's just replacing the chassis with features that can be stolen.

What about being a minion focused class, relying on your creations/summons to protect you? What about being a chassis swapping class that chooses two or three partial classes at the start of each day? What about being a class built on making choices to replace your chassis, like the Evolutionist?

Wildshape is a lazy method that doesn't actually get you all the way there. Sneak Attack is a good start. But what about using it as a healer? Ranged attacks with weapons? A tank. I could make half a dozen classes out of it, off of just the ideas I have laying around, barely started as notes.

Hell, I could make half a dozen subsystems out of it. That's the level of brainstorming I have.

[Rebel7284]

I am thinking some sort of alternative Chameleon class. Perfectly bad chasis makes sense when you can mix and match ways to improve it every day! Obviously, lack of spells would make this comparatively weaker (hey folks, Charm/Dominate is a spell ;) .) But there are enough non-spell abilities that haven't been explicitly banned to make this hit a pretty high tier. Specifically Wildshape (already mentioned) and ways to get yourself allies (Animal Companion/Special Mount/Free Leadership(Thrallherd Mentioned)/etc.)