Mei (Of Overwatch)

[JNAProductions]

Abilities-A high Strength... Useless. A high Dexterity is useful for landing attacks, but probably not overly needed. A high Constitution helps EVERYONE. A high Intelligence is quite useful for this class, though, as are the other mental stats.

Alignment-Any.

Hit Die-d8

Class Skills-Balance, Bluff, Climb, Concentration, Craft, Decipher Script, Diplomacy, Disable Device, Gather Information, Heal, Jump, Knowledge (All), Listen, Open Lock, Profession, Search, Sense Motive, Speak Language, Spellcraft, Spot, Survival, Swim, and Use Magic Device.

Skill Points 4+Int Mod per level (times 4 at level one)

Base Attack Bonus-Medium (3/4ths)

Fort Save-Good

Reflex Save-Poor

Will Save-Good



Level
Features
Icy Blast
Icy Blast
Upgrades
Gadgets


1
Icy Blast, Least Gadget
1d6
0
1


2
-
1d6
1
2


3
Cold Resist 5
1d6
1
2


4
Protective Dome
2d6
2
3


5
Piercing Cold
2d6
2
3


6
Lesser Gadget
2d6
3
4


7
Cold Resist 10
3d6
3
4


8
Ice Wall
3d6
3
5


9
-
3d6
4
5


10
Cold Resist 20
4d6
4
6


11
Greater Gadget
4d6
5
7


12
Improved Piercing Cold
4d6
5
7


13
Cold Resist 30
5d6
5
8


14
-
5d6
6
8


15
Cold Immunity
5d6
6
9


16
Perfect Gadget
6d6
7
10


17
-
6d6
7
10


18
?
6d6
7
11


19
?
7d6
8
11


20
?
7d6
8
12



Icy Blast (ex)-Mei is capable of shooting a blast of ice from her cryogun, capable of doing large amounts of damage or of doing far less, but slowing enemies as well. She can either fire her cryogun as a touch attack (doing the indicated damage in the Icy Blast column as cold and piercing damage), with iteratives possible assuming she has sufficient BAB, or as a touch attack that does the minimum damage possible as just cold damage. If she chooses the low damage shot, it also slows the enemy. Each successive attack reduces all the target's speeds by either 25% or 10', whichever is a larger penalty. This penalty stacks with itself. If an opponent is reduced to 0' in all speeds, it is considered restrained and exhausted for as long as Mei maintains the penalties on it, as well as being unable to move. This penalty lasts one round per five levels in this class, rounding up.

The range on the higher-damage is 120', and 30' on the low damage setting.

The blasts are sent using Mei's cryogun, a two-handed weapon. It has hardness 10 or Mei's class level, whichever is higher, and 30 HP or 5* her class levels, whichever is higher. It is also DNA-locked to Mei, meaning no one else can use it normally-however, it can be stolen, disarmed, sundered, etc. Mei can create a new one using 100 GP worth of mechanical parts and 8 hours of work. Someone else can use it with a successful UMD check, equal to 15+Mei's class levels. This UMD is required each time you use it, and is doable as a free action. (So, if you fire it three times due to high BAB in a round, you must make three UMD checks.) On a failure by 5 or less, the gun simply does not work. On a failure of 6 or more, the gun jams, and requires either Mei to spend a full-round action (which provokes) un-jamming it, or the same action and a DC 15+2*Mei's class levels to un-jam it. On a failure where the ending result is 5 or less, the gun explodes, dealing 2d10 points of cold damage to the wielder for every class level Mei has.

Icy Blast Upgrades-These work like the Warlock's Eldritch Blast and Eldritch Essence Invocations.

Gadgets-These work like regular Invocations, using Intelligence as their main stat. List below.

Cold Resist (ex)-At the indicated levels, Mei gains resistance to Cold damage and eventually immunity.

Protective Dome (ex)-Mei is, at level four, capable of encasing herself in ice. As a move action, she may encase herself, and may break out at any subsequent point as a free action. The ice encasing her has Hardness equal to her class levels, and HP equal to 10*her class levels, though it is vulnerable to fire (which also bypasses its hardness). She may do this once every minute. The encasing lasts four rounds, unless Mei breaks out early.

Piercing Cold (ex)-At level five, Mei's specially created cryoblasts are capable of punching through cold resistances and immunities. Half of the damage that would be resisted is instead dealt to the creature as untyped damage. (For instance, Mei deals 8 points of damage to a creature with cold immunity. It would all be resisted, so she does 4 points (half of 8) instead. If she instead dealt 8 points of damage to someone with cold resist 5, she would deal 6 points of damage total (half of 5, rounding up, plus the unresisted damage).)

Ice Wall (ex)-Starting at level eight, Mei can cast Wall of Ice once per minute, though its duration is shortened to four rounds. Her caster level is equal to her levels in this class.

Charming (ex)-Mei's charming and lovable nature make her hard to resist. She gains a bonus on Charisma checks equal to one-fourth her class levels.

Icy Fog (ex)-May cast Fog Cloud at-will.

Night Vision (ex)-Gain Darkvision out to 120', pierces magical darkness.

Thermal Imaging (ex)-Gain a constant See Invisibility effect.

Really Nice Cleats (ex)-Gain a constant Spider Climb effect.

Rocket Boots (ex)-Gain a fly speed equal to your land speed with average maneuverability.

Advanced Sensor Suite (ex)-Gain blindsense out to 30'.

I Don't Believe In Fairies! (ex)-Use Dispel Magic at-will, dealing 1d6 points of untyped damage to the creature targeted by the dispel per spell level dispelled.

Invisibility Suite (ex)-Cast Invisibility at-will, targeting self only.

Chilling Tentacles (ex)-Pretty much as the Warlock invocation. Evard's Black Tentacles with cold damage.

Better Rocket Boots (ex)-Increase Fly speed by 20', go up to good.

Toughened Gear (ex)-Gain your level in THP as a standard action.

Stimulants (ex)-Gain Fast Healing 1, as per a Lesser Vigor spell.

Advanced Invisibility Suite (ex)-Greater Invisibility now, still self only.

I Hate Fairies (ex)-Use Greater Dispel Magic at-will, dealing 1d6 points of untyped damage to the creature targeted by the dispel per spell level dispelled.

Range Suite (ex)-Increase range to 360' and 90' for high and low damage modes.

Yellow Ice (ex)-Target must make a Fortitude save or become sickened.

Powerful Shots (ex)-Increases base damage by 1d6.

Go For The Eyes! (ex)-Fort save or blinded for a round.

Really Chilly (ex)-Fort save or take a -2 penalty to Dex.

Chaining Tech (ex)-Icy Blast chains between targets.

LSD Ice (ex)-Will save or become confused for a round.

Noxious Ice (ex)-Fort save or become nauseated.

Repelling Ice (ex)-Reflex save or knocked back.

Spreadshot (ex)-Icy Blast is now a cone.

Draining Blast (ex)-Fort save or gain two negative levels.

Cloud Burst (ex)-Hits all targets of your choice within 20'.



I could use some advice for more features, more Gadgets and upgrades, and general balance ideas.

[Morphic tide]

I'd reduce the damage scaling of the Icy Blast to one die per four levels, then add a Fort Negates or Halves(Fort Halves would be a good upgrade slot) Dexterity penalty. Maybe have that be scaling on the even levels not covered by the dice, so the dice go for levels 1, 4, 8, 12, 16 and 20, while the Dexterity penalty goes up at levels 1, 6, 10 and 18. The reason for this is simply because of iterative access. The Warlock only gets one Eldritch Blast per round, unless they spend a feat or invocation(can't remember which Eldritch Glaive is) to apply it to each melee attack. Which has to deal with normal AC, not Touch AC, and is melee, not ranged.

The Gadgets would be nice as an Infusion-type Invocation setup. See Artificer handbooks for what Infusions do to get an idea. As-is, they're too much silly fluff surrounding Mei, the character. See theperfect25's Overwatch classes for more about what to do to make classes based on the themes of Overwatch characters. I, personally, have a hankering to work out classes for Orisa and Bastion, themed around getting better and weirder use out of fixed equipment chosen at first level.

One of the things that theperfect25 does is make the class have two or three "paths", like 5e classes do in the PHB. Each path lets the class get different things, like letting the Mercy-based class be a minionmancer by taking a penalty to the resurrection check to make the resurrected entity come back as an intelligent Zombie bound to the character's will. I'm serious, too...

Another thing that theperfect25 does is have them oriented towards team play, kinda slotting into roles a lot with some flaw making it hard for them to solo things. The Mercy has abysmal damage potential, the various offence heroes are glass cannon as **** and... there actually aren't any tank heroes yet, but they'd probably utterly suck at actually putting enemies down in any way. Oh, wait, D.Va! D.Va mostly has tradeoffs, able to do quite a bit of damage.

Combining these two, the Mei-based class could have two paths focused on different styles of B(ig)F(rickin')C(aster). The typical Wizard pattern of debuffs and obstacles for days while the rest of the party actually kills the now-mostly-helpless enemies, or launching enormous amounts of damage to do the killing yourself like the Sorcerer's Mailman school of BFC. Both still need other party members, if they're balanced correctly, in particular the DPR of the damage setup needs to give enough time for enemies to stand a good chance of killing the damage dealer, but are able to contribute themselves. Thing is, most of the classes have the Path kick in at level 15, so the paths are really to make the class specialize when the list elements for specializing start to run out. This means there needs to be enough options to specialize to that point. And no, the zombie-making Mercy path doesn't actually fit the rest of the class... seriously, why is that a thing?

More specific suggestions are beyond me at the moment... I've had horrible sleep the last few days.

[JNAProductions]

Eldritch Glaive still has you do Touch Attacks. So, I'm not overly concerned about damage, at least not compared to that.

And do you have any SPECIFIC suggestions? I do appreciate the time you took to critique it, but I was hoping for more concrete ideas, rather than concepts.

[Morphic tide]

Eldritch Glaive still has you do Touch Attacks. So, I'm not overly concerned about damage, at least not compared to that.

And do you have any SPECIFIC suggestions? I do appreciate the time you took to critique it, but I was hoping for more concrete ideas, rather than concepts.

...Okay, my point about damage kinda still stands because of ranged Touch Iteratives. The damage output is high to the point of crowding out room for modifiers, and one of Mei's most "iconic" features is the slow effect. Cold-based debuffs in 3.5 are usually Dexterity reduction, though, with the description of zero-dex paralysis being quite similar to being frozen solid.

So, let me give a modified basic table:



Level
BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Special
Cryo-Burst
Gadgets


1
0
+2
+0
+2
Cryo-Burst, Basic Gadgets
1d6; -1 Dex
1


2
+1
+3
+0
+3
Special
1d6; -2 Dex
1


3
+2
+3
+1
+3
Special
1d6; -2 Dex
2


4
+3
+4
+1
+4
Special
2d6; -2 Dex
2


5
+3
+4
+1
+4
Special
2d6; -2 Dex
3


6
+4
+5
+2
+5
Simple Gadgets
2d6; -3 Dex
3


7
+5
+5
+2
+5
Special
2d6; -3 Dex
4


8
+6/+1
+6
+2
+6
Special
3d6; -3 Dex
4


9
+6/+1
+6
+3
+6
Special
3d6; -3 Dex
5


10
+7/+2
+7
+3
+7
Special
3d6; -4 Dex
6


11
+8/+3
+7
+3
+7
Complex Gadgets
3d6; -4 Dex
7


12
+9/+4
+8
+4
+8
Special
4d6; -4 Dex
7


13
+9/+4
+8
+4
+8
Special
4d6; -4 Dex
8


14
+10/+5
+9
+4
+9
Special
4d6; -5 Dex
8


15
+11/+6/+1
+9
+5
+9
Special
4d6; -5 Dex
9


16
+12/+7/+2
+10
+5
+10
Wondrous Gadgets
5d6; -5 Dex
10


17
+12/+7/+2
+10
+5
+10
Special
5d6; -5 Dex
10


18
+13/+8/+3
+11
+6
+11
Special
5d6; -6 Dex
11


19
+14/+9/+4
+11
+6
+11
Special
5d6; -6 Dex
11


20
+15/+10/+5
+12
+6
+12
Special
6d6; -6 Dex
12



The point of renaming it Cryo-Burst is because of being a bit less direct with the Warlock parallels and because it's a bit more complicated than just being "icy." Both the wall of ice and nigh-invulnerable block of healing ice come from the gun. And the BAB and saves are supposed to be in the table. The removal of upgrades for the ability from its own column is because there's a very good reason that Warlock uses Invocations for Eldritch Blast improvements. It makes it so that there's room for the power increase of the modifiers.

The reason for only listing Gadget rank progressions is because I'm not really sure exactly what to do with the baseline abilities. I've got ideas for abilities to put in various spots, like being able to choose from stacking iteratives into a single Cryo-Burst or getting a TWF based increase in Cryo-Burst attacks at level 8, and having that choice define something gotten at level 15 and 20 as the implementation of the path setup theperfect25 uses. The change in names is, again, to reduce Warlock parallels. And cut down on shenanigans with PRCs.

I can think of a few ways to make Ice Block work out as a basic ability separate from Gadgets, while still being improved by them. The one I'd prefer the most would be having it actually be attached to the damage, granting temporary HP equal to the rolled damage. So Cold Resistance reduces damage taken from it, but not the temporary HP from it. This means that creatures with Cold Resistance have a net gain of HP for the duration. Of course, it also immobilizes the target, so it can line up a kill. Then the actual healing can come from a Gadget option that largely reduces the damage dealt and makes up for the damage with healing. So without a Gadget, it's an emergency defensive option for characters with substantial Cold Resistance, with the cost of immobilizing them for up to six rounds,

The Ultimate ability from the game can actually be an automatic level six ability, so that it can make use of Simple Gadgets immediately. Using it could lower the effectiveness of Cryo-Burst to be as if the character was four levels lower for its duration, thereby setting both the damage and dexterity penalty back one step. A cooldown of some form, probably twice the duration its used, would make sure it isn't relentlessly spammed, but is also on-demand enough that spot usage of Gadget-granted improvements is doable. Like flat save-or-lose effects in the Complex Gadget category.

The big thing for me is that the Gadgets should be the bulk of the versatility, with them mainly acting upon the baseline class features. Replication of spell effects should be actively considered for how much sense they make with the explanation. And they should be gadgets, as in actual devices or improvements to devices. Think in terms of how you could accomplish something either wholly or partially through forming ice. Spider Climb through cleats would have the cleats making ice to use as footholds, freezing the cleats in place while you get the next foot into position.

The setup is really janky and covered in the idea of a generic gadgeteer, rather than staying focused on cold. The naming is also nasty... I'll come back tomorrow and see what I can do to alter the Gadgets to fit my idea of a Mei-based class... alongside a name for the class proper. Maybe something mixing greek and latin, with some distortion. Fantasy uses that almost as often as science fiction, weirdly enough... Keep the use of pronouns if you like, most classes use actual gendered pronouns instead of gender-neutral pronouns due to Wizards of the Coast using the gender of the "iconic" character of a class. Generally the one in the class's introductory picture. I just have a habit of using gender neutral because of not defining an iconic. Which I could stand to do more, as it would help me keep a coherent theme the whole way through a class by having it focused on "what does this character do?"