Building an E6 animal-spirit based class.

[johnbragg]

I want a "diet Druid" in my game. Themed to one animal, witch-doctor to a tribe.

I think I have a good idea for a progression from almost-at-will summoner to "pet class" to wilderness mech-rider/wildshaper. The class isn't the problem--the spirit companion / alternate form is the problem.

The Bear Brother is the problem. I think.

Level 1. Ability to summon Bear Brother. Full round action, effectively at will but not always-on.
Level 2. Bear Brother can be summoned and dismissed at will.
Level 4. At this point the class changes from "pet class" to "wilderness mech-rider". Shaman and Bear Brother can now join to form a gestalt or composite being.
Level 6. Capstone. Animal Growth is--too much.

That's all manageable-- Not sure exactly what ruleset to use for the level 4 ability--alternate form, gestalt rules (gestalt of shaman class with be-a-bear pseudo-class of same level), polymorph, wildshape. I kind of want the composite to use Bear Brother's hit points though, which I don't think there's a 3X off-the-shelf ruleset for.

The problem is progressing Bear Brother from level 1 to level 6. Using the SRD Monster Advancement rules, you can take a 3HD Medium Black Bear and make it Small (1-2 HD) and make it Large (5-6 HD). (I ran version 1.0 also converting it to MAgical Beast, because Brother Bear goes from a baby bear hanging out and fighting alongside a dude to a dude hiding inside an unnaturally large bear and casting buff spells on it. Dropping back to Animal progression would dial it back from full BAB d10 HP to 3/4 BAB, d8 HP, which is still better than the Shaman's 1/2 BAB d6 HP squishy-caster chassis.)

There's a massive jump in capability between 4HD (MEdium) and 5HD (Large) because of the +8 STR, +4 CON boosts. Brother Bear goes from 30 hp, 2 claws +8 (d4+4) bite +6 (d6+2) (Multiattack feat) to 47 hp, 2 claws +12 (d6+8), bite +10 (d8+4) (Claw attack +5 BAB +8 STR -1 size, bite -2 secondary).

This is way better than a wildshaped druid in E6, and better than any Animal Companion feature. But +12/+12/+10 for d6+8/d6+8/d8+4 is--up there with your basic 6th level raging 2HPA base 20 STR Barbarian, +7/+7 2d6 +22 / 2d6 +12.

So, are there ways to fix this?

[Zaq]

It’s a radically different direction from what you put on the page here, but have you looked at Totemist for inspiration? Totemist is my go-to “glue monster abilities to a PC” class. It doesn’t exactly do summoning, but what it does do, it does very well. (It’s explicitly about magical beasts rather than animals, but if you’re aiming for less magic and more beast, you can ignore or tone down the more overtly fire/lightning/teleportation/whatever stuff and still have a functional class, though you’ll want to throw in some kind of concessions to make up for the loss. Like, say, the pet you were talking about.)

[johnbragg]

I realized that everything gets much more manageable if instead of changing the size category, I just have Brother Bear gain 4 Strength and 2 Con and lose 2 Dex at levels 3 and 5, and set the base stats as the level 3-4 stats for a Medium, the level 5-6 for a Large, 1-2 for a Small. Will work on the detailed math later

[johnbragg]

OK. So I'm kicking around the idea now that Brother Bear doesn't progress from Small to Medium to Large, he just is whatever size he is. His base stats (Medium) go in the middle of the chart, and we adjust by +4 STR, -2 DEX, +2 CON in either direction.

So let's look at Brother Black Bear from the SRD. Str 19, Dex 15, Con 15.



HD
Strength
Dexterity
Constitution


1-2
15 +2 (19-4)
17 +3 (15+2)
13 +1(15 -2)


3-4
19 +4
15 +2
15 +2


5-6
21 +6 (19+4)
13 +1 (15 - 2)
17 +3 (15 + 2)



That's a reasonable rate of growth. Maybe throw in +1 Natural Armor at each increment.

What does a large, Brother Ape look like, should we choose to allow Large totem spirits?



HD
Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
NA


1-2
13
19
10
1


3-4
17
17
12
2


5-6
21
15
14
3



That's kind of a mess, actually. Maybe the SRD statblock should always be 3-4 HD



HD
Strength
Dexterity
Constitution
NA


1-2
17
19
12
2


3-4
21
17
14
3


5-6
25
15
16
4



Here's where Animal Growth gets highly questionable--another +8 Strength and we're at 33, a +11 Strength bonus, which seems about right for King Kong, but is it fair to the Barbarian?

EDIT: Corrected a math/counting mistake. If Dex is dropping -2, -2 instead of -4, -4, the Ape's first table doesn't look so wonky. And with Strength topping out at 21, +8 brings you to 29 instead of 33.