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View Full Version : D&D 3.x Other Brainstorming Shifter Totemist Substitution Levels



PhantasyPen
2018-08-23, 10:12 AM
After going through the MoI for the umpteenth time and being on a major Shifter kick lately I thought I might try my hand at introducing these two things together and see how it turns out. Honestly I'm surprised that there isn't already a set of official shifter substitution levels for the totemist considering just how well their fluff matches up.

So the first thing I want to try with these substitution levels is that at each one increases the Totemist's BAB by +1, giving the class "full" BAB for the first few levels.

After taking Nifft's suggestion to make it so that the Shifter Totemist substitution levels give the Totemist a full BAB, I decided to put the substitution levels at 1, 4, and 7.

At first level, you lost Wild Empathy, but now Essentia and Incarnum feats count as Shifter feats.
At fourth level, while you are shifting, you gain temporary bonus Essentia equal to the number of Shifter feats you have.
Now, seventh level is still where I'm getting stuck, I'm torn between giving the shifter totemist the ability to invest essentia into their shifting, thereby increasing the number of rounds they can shift (and possibly the benefits of their primary shifter trait, does anyone think getting both of these benefits would be too much?) or giving the shifter totemist the ability to increase their totem chakra's essentia capacity at a rate of +1/2 shifter feats.

Nifft
2018-08-23, 12:33 PM
"Shifters are lycanthrope descendants, which are associated with normal animals. Totemists are associated with magical beasts. Totally different things!" -- WotC probably


Anyway yeah, you're on to something good here. Shifters are a great fit for Totemist, and they frankly need more nice things.

I've never seen BAB increased as part of a racial sub level. There might be a reason for that? I dunno. It seems like a Totemist is going to use natural weapons anyway, so BAB isn't as relevant to a Totemist -- a non-base bonus to attack would be worth as much, for the most part, and might cause fewer problems.

I like the idea of Incarnum feats extending Shifting. How about Shifter feats giving +1 Essentia?

You could grant a race-specific soulmeld (similar to the stuff Dragonbloods get) which you might shape to your Soul chakra, since Totemists don't have much use for that slot usually. Investing Essentia in it might give Shifting benefits, or a bonus to attacks. The Soul chakra bind ought to give some Epic-appropriate benefit since a Totemist can't bind that chakra until Epic levels anyway.

Or you could modify the Totem Avatar soulmeld so binding it to your Totem chakra gives a bonus to attack and damage, instead of just damage.


The Totem Rager PrC gives a benefit similar to your idea about free Essentia while shifting. It's not that well balanced, unfortunately, so you might want to ignore its specifics after you loot it for general ideas.


One final word of advice: levels 5 and 9 are already pretty great, with their bind unlocks. I'd recommend targeting dead levels instead.

Just to Browse
2018-08-23, 12:39 PM
I really like this idea! It looks like there aren't any shifter racial sub levels at all, which is a shame.

What are you thinking of taking out at at level 1 in exchange for that new class feature? I assume you can lose some chakra bind options at levels 5 and 9, but I'm not sure there's much you can cut out from the level 1 substitution. Wild Empathy is pretty minor compared to +1 BAB and the feat synergy.

Also, I'm also not sure the full BAB change works. Because of how class-based table lookups operate in D&D 3e, I believe that moving from level 1 to level 2 will return you from the Shifter's full BAB to the normal totemist's non-full BAB. Even if you special-case it, this seems unintuitive for players who aren't familiar with how D&D's fractional BAB progressions work.

For level 5 - you could make the duration key off essentia in your totem soulmeld to drive home the flavor synergy between the race & class. Possibly something like this? - "Every point of essentia invested in the shifter totemist's totem soulmeld increases the duration of shifting by 1 round."

I think level 9 is the best place to grant bonus essentia, though I'm not sure if it's appropriate to key it 1-to-1 with the number of shifter feats you have. That can be a pretty hefty chunk of essentia. Maybe a number of essentia equal to your daily uses of shifter feats (essentially granting 1 + 1/2 your shifter feats worth of essentia)?

PhantasyPen
2018-08-23, 01:10 PM
"Shifters are lycanthrope descendants, which are associated with normal animals. Totemists are associated with magical beasts. Totally different things!" -- WotC probably

Yeah, this sounds like WotC...



Anyway yeah, you're on to something good here. Shifters are a great fit for Totemist, and they frankly need more nice things.

I've never seen BAB increased as part of a racial sub level. There might be a reason for that? I dunno. It seems like a Totemist is going to use natural weapons anyway, so BAB isn't as relevant to a Totemist -- a non-base bonus to attack would be worth as much, for the most part, and might cause fewer problems.

I was thinking about the BAB increase because it allows the totemist to be a bit closer to the traits of a Magical Beast. Honestly I always figured the only reason WotC made them a 3/4th's BAB class is because the sheer number of natural attacks they can get would be crazy with the right amount of optimization, but there are several racial substitution levels that increase hit dice size, so increasing BAB doesn't seem too off-balance to me.




I like the idea of Incarnum feats extending Shifting. How about Shifter feats giving +1 Essentia?

You could grant a race-specific soulmeld (similar to the stuff Dragonbloods get) which you might shape to your Soul chakra, since Totemists don't have much use for that slot usually. Investing Essentia in it might give Shifting benefits, or a bonus to attacks. The Soul chakra bind ought to give some Epic-appropriate benefit since a Totemist can't bind that chakra until Epic levels anyway.

Your first suggestion is kind of what I suggested for the fifth-level substitution level, so I'll just take that as agreement? As for creating shifter-specific soulmelds, I'm not particularly keen on that, since I don't really have enough mastery of the sub-system as a whole to confidently make my own homebrew soulmelds, I mainly have solely focused on the Totemist while working with Incarnum.



The Totem Rager PrC gives a benefit similar to your idea about free Essentia while shifting. It's not that well balanced, unfortunately, so you might want to ignore its specifics after you loot it for general ideas.


One final word of advice: levels 5 and 9 are already pretty great, with their bind unlocks. I'd recommend targeting dead levels instead. I'll look at the totem rager ability again and see what can be cannibalized, and I wanted to target dead levels, but unfortunately the dead levels add a point of BAB, which doesn't work for my plan of having each substitution level add a point.


I really like this idea! It looks like there aren't any shifter racial sub levels at all, which is a shame.

What are you thinking of taking out at at level 1 in exchange for that new class feature? I assume you can lose some chakra bind options at levels 5 and 9, but I'm not sure there's much you can cut out from the level 1 substitution. Wild Empathy is pretty minor compared to +1 BAB and the feat synergy.

Funny thing, the Shifter Wilder substitution levels add the entire list of egoist powers to your class list for free, so there's precedent for not replacing anything when you add something, which is the direction I was leaning for level 5 and 9. For level 1 I was planning to get rid of the Wild empathy.




Also, I'm also not sure the full BAB change works. Because of how class-based table lookups operate in D&D 3e, I believe that moving from level 1 to level 2 will return you from the Shifter's full BAB to the normal totemist's non-full BAB. Even if you special-case it, this seems unintuitive for players who aren't familiar with how D&D's fractional BAB progressions work.

Objections noted, but I don't follow your logic?



For level 5 - you could make the duration key off essentia in your totem soulmeld to drive home the flavor synergy between the race & class. Possibly something like this? - "Every point of essentia invested in the shifter totemist's totem soulmeld increases the duration of shifting by 1 round."

This seems fair. A little weak, but fair.



I think level 9 is the best place to grant bonus essentia, though I'm not sure if it's appropriate to key it 1-to-1 with the number of shifter feats you have. That can be a pretty hefty chunk of essentia. Maybe a number of essentia equal to your daily uses of shifter feats (essentially granting 1 + 1/2 your shifter feats worth of essentia)?

Moving the level 5 ability to level 9 seems fine, but I don't think I like the idea of keying it specifically off of your uses/day. Even if you spend all your feats on [Shifter] feats, that's still only 7-9 extra essentia max isn't it?

Nifft
2018-08-23, 01:48 PM
I was thinking about the BAB increase because it allows the totemist to be a bit closer to the traits of a Magical Beast. Honestly I always figured the only reason WotC made them a 3/4th's BAB class is because the sheer number of natural attacks they can get would be crazy with the right amount of optimization, but there are several racial substitution levels that increase hit dice size, so increasing BAB doesn't seem too off-balance to me. WotC massively over-valued BAB. This is evident in the Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Soulborn, and many other classes.

You could just give Shifter Totemist full BAB at level 1, and have it affect all future Totemist levels forever. That's probably going to be far less annoying than tracking a small number of table additions which propagate partially but not completely. Also it removes your need to target levels 5 and 9, which are bad targets since they're already quite decent -- and yet there's nothing to remove at those levels.

If you were free to ignore levels 5 and 9, you could target levels like 3 which has a removable feature, or levels like 4 which are dead.



Your first suggestion is kind of what I suggested for the fifth-level substitution level, so I'll just take that as agreement? Kind of, I guess? Except actually different?

Meh, do what you like. :)

PhantasyPen
2018-08-23, 01:56 PM
WotC massively over-valued BAB. This is evident in the Fighter, Ranger, Paladin, Soulborn, and many other classes.

You could just give Shifter Totemist full BAB at level 1, and have it affect all future Totemist levels forever. That's probably going to be far less annoying than tracking a small number of table additions which propagate partially but not completely. Also it removes your need to target levels 5 and 9, which are bad targets since they're already quite decent -- and yet there's nothing to remove at those levels.

If you were free to ignore levels 5 and 9, you could target levels like 3 which has a removable feature, or levels like 4 which are dead.

Okay, yeah, this suggestion sounds much better than what I had in mind, and as you said, it allows me to target dead levels for substitutions.

PhantasyPen
2018-08-23, 11:02 PM
Okay! I hate double-posting but I want to make sure people see this. The original post is being modified as well.

After taking Nifft's suggestion to make it so that the Shifter Totemist substitution levels give the Totemist a full BAB, I decided to put the substitution levels at 1, 4, and 7.

At first level, you lost Wild Empathy, but now Essentia and Incarnum feats count as Shifter feats.
At fourth level, while you are shifting, you gain temporary bonus Essentia equal to the number of Shifter feats you have.
Now, seventh level is still where I'm getting stuck, I'm torn between giving the shifter totemist the ability to invest essentia into their shifting, thereby increasing the number of rounds they can shift (and possibly the benefits of their primary shifter trait, does anyone think getting both of these benefits would be too much?) or giving the shifter totemist the ability to increase their totem chakra's essentia capacity at a rate of +1/2 shifter feats.

Amnoriath
2018-08-25, 06:15 PM
After taking Nifft's suggestion to make it so that the Shifter Totemist substitution levels give the Totemist a full BAB, I decided to put the substitution levels at 1, 4, and 7.

At first level, you lost Wild Empathy, but now Essentia and Incarnum feats count as Shifter feats.
At fourth level, while you are shifting, you gain temporary bonus Essentia equal to the number of Shifter feats you have.
Now, seventh level is still where I'm getting stuck, I'm torn between giving the shifter totemist the ability to invest essentia into their shifting, thereby increasing the number of rounds they can shift (and possibly the benefits of their primary shifter trait, does anyone think getting both of these benefits would be too much?) or giving the shifter totemist the ability to increase their totem chakra's essentia capacity at a rate of +1/2 shifter feats.
1. Don't do that, not only is it not done by any other substitution level but benefit of it is much much larger than a hit die increase. The damage increase output from it is in the hundreds with the right feat and bind combo. Substituion levels can be taken one at a time so it could be taken and left.
2. Dead levels should be fixed for the class not substitution levels, than there is no reason not to take it.
3. Between the Shifter and Totemist you don't have many feat slots at your disposal. So making an ability that keys off of many supplemental type feats isn't good design. Right out off the bat you are better off increasing the hit die to a d10 and a bonus shifter feat. It does what you want and helps the feat economy.
2. Again, look for something relatively minor like the +1 meldshaper level to the totem to give yourself another shifter feat.
3. The final level then can be putting Incarnum in your shifting. I would choose level 9. I would also add damage to natural attacks.

PhantasyPen
2018-08-25, 09:25 PM
1. Don't do that, not only is it not done by any other substitution level but benefit of it is much much larger than a hit die increase. The damage increase output from it is in the hundreds with the right feat and bind combo. Substituion levels can be taken one at a time so it could be taken and left.
2. Dead levels should be fixed for the class not substitution levels, than there is no reason not to take it.
3. Between the Shifter and Totemist you don't have many feat slots at your disposal. So making an ability that keys off of many supplemental type feats isn't good design. Right out off the bat you are better off increasing the hit die to a d10 and a bonus shifter feat. It does what you want and helps the feat economy.
2. Again, look for something relatively minor like the +1 meldshaper level to the totem to give yourself another shifter feat.
3. The final level then can be putting Incarnum in your shifting. I would choose level 9. I would also add damage to natural attacks.

1. I would much rather try something and see it doesn't work than just have a bunch of people shouting "this won't work!" The BAB is an intentional experiment and I am not changing it. If it goes badly, I'll consider the hitdie increase instead.
2.1? That's the point. I want people to take all three levels.
2.2? I need you to try and re-explain what you're saying here, it looks like half of one sentence got added to half of another sentence.
3.1? Why is this bad design? It caters quite well to the way Shifters normally play (you want as many Shifter feats as possible) and synergizes the class with the race, the fact that 3.5 feat slots are limited actually should make this ability a bit more limited than it could be and is a feature, not a bug.
3.2? Soooo, that would be the first option I talked about I guess? At 7th level you can invest essentia into your shifting to increase the duration and the benefit of your primary shifter trait?

Amnoriath
2018-08-25, 11:06 PM
1. I would much
2.1? That's the point. I want people to take all three levels.
2.2? I need you to try and re-explain what you're saying here, it looks like half of one sentence got added to half of another sentence.
3.1? Why is this bad design? It caters quite well to the way Shifters normally play (you want as many Shifter feats as possible) and synergizes the class with the race, the fact that 3.5 feat slots are limited actually should make this ability a bit more limited than it could be and is a feature, not a bug.
3.2? Soooo, that would be the first option I talked about I guess? At 7th level you can invest essentia into your shifting to increase the duration and the benefit of your primary shifter trait?
1. And my point is that since they don't have to take all 3 they will take the first one and leave.
2. It is bad design with a Totemist as they don't get bonus feats. It is also bad because good Incarnum builds that use all of Incarnum only need a couple of feats aside from the Totem Rager. Incarnum feats lock down essentia for the day and therefore are generally bad.
3. It is better that you just get a couple of shifter feats rather than synergize them as you could lose out on more key essential feats to fighting like Improved Trip, Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack...etc.

PhantasyPen
2018-08-27, 02:37 PM
1. And my point is that since they don't have to take all 3 they will take the first one and leave.
2. It is bad design with a Totemist as they don't get bonus feats. It is also bad because good Incarnum builds that use all of Incarnum only need a couple of feats aside from the Totem Rager. Incarnum feats lock down essentia for the day and therefore are generally bad.
3. It is better that you just get a couple of shifter feats rather than synergize them as you could lose out on more key essential feats to fighting like Improved Trip, Improved Bull Rush, Power Attack...etc.

I feel like you're looking at this from a completely different angle than is intended.

Amnoriath
2018-08-27, 06:34 PM
And how are you intending it to be? Because that often gets lost in the web.

Nifft
2018-08-27, 08:45 PM
Okay! I hate double-posting but I want to make sure people see this. The original post is being modified as well.

After taking Nifft's suggestion to make it so that the Shifter Totemist substitution levels give the Totemist a full BAB, I decided to put the substitution levels at 1, 4, and 7.

At first level, you lost Wild Empathy, but now Essentia and Incarnum feats count as Shifter feats.
At fourth level, while you are shifting, you gain temporary bonus Essentia equal to the number of Shifter feats you have.
Now, seventh level is still where I'm getting stuck, I'm torn between giving the shifter totemist the ability to invest essentia into their shifting, thereby increasing the number of rounds they can shift (and possibly the benefits of their primary shifter trait, does anyone think getting both of these benefits would be too much?) or giving the shifter totemist the ability to increase their totem chakra's essentia capacity at a rate of +1/2 shifter feats.

I wouldn't give a cap-breaking ability.


Some ideas:

- While you're Shifting, any natural attack "covering" one of your Shifter traits gets a bonus. Maybe bigger damage die?

- When you bind a soulmeld to your Totem chakra, you get an extra Shifter trait based on the soulmeld's primary binding chakra.

- You can allocate Essence to your Shifter trait(s); this improves the usual bonus in some thematic way.

PhantasyPen
2018-08-28, 11:07 AM
I wouldn't give a cap-breaking ability.


Some ideas:

- While you're Shifting, any natural attack "covering" one of your Shifter traits gets a bonus. Maybe bigger damage die?

- When you bind a soulmeld to your Totem chakra, you get an extra Shifter trait based on the soulmeld's primary binding chakra.

- You can allocate Essence to your Shifter trait(s); this improves the usual bonus in some thematic way.

The last of these is what I'm currently leaning towards, with Beasthide and Winterhide getting an increase in natural armor (and cold resistance in the case of the winterhide shifter), the three movement-based shifter traits getting a speed boost, and the natural attack traits getting increased damage. I'm not sure what I should do with the dreamsight and wildhunt shifter traits however in this system.

I don't think I would want to go with the first option, but what kind of bonuses would you go with for the second one? Would it be based purely on the chakra? Or would you want to try creating unique bonuses for each soulmeld.

Just to Browse
2018-08-28, 12:42 PM
Re: the BAB changes.

So the default rule of D&D is that if you have a level in a class, you get the class's BAB by looking it up in the table. The rule for substitutions levels is that you replace all the table entries at a given level with those of your chosen substitute. So a class where the 3 sub-levels are all full BAB might look something like this:



+1 (lvl 1 sub)
+1
+2
+3
+5 (lvl 5 sub)
+4
+5
+6
+9 (lvl 9 sub)
+7
+8
+9
+9
+10
+11
+12
+12
+13
+14
+15



That seems really weird. Alternatively, you could do fractional BAB, and then the progression would look like this:



+1 (1) (lvl 1 sub)
+1 (1.75)
+2 (2.5)
+3 (3.25)
+4 (4.25) (lvl 2 sub)
+5 (5)
+5 (5.75)
+6 (6.5)
+7 (7.5) (lvl 9 sub)
+8 (8.25)
+9 (9)
+9 (9.75)
+10 (10.5)
+11 (11.25)
+12 (12)
+12 (12.75)
+13 (13.5)
+14 (14.25)
+15 (15)
+15 (15.75)



In essence, you're adding 0.75 additional BAB over the course of 9 levels, and that leads to an increase in BAB at certain levels, but no increase at other levels. If you do that, there's a very high chance that your players are going to have a tough time building their characters. A player rolling up a level 11 shifter totemist can't easily reference the main class table or the substitution table to figure out what their fractional BAB is supposed to be. The normal totemist table would tell them their BAB is +10, but it's actually supposed to be +11 (unless they only have 1 sub-level, then it is +10). You will have to include three separate 20-level charts to cover all the use cases.

This is all on top of the fact that your ACF table would need to make a variant D&D rule into a mandatory one, and your substitution table wouldn't be enough to communicate the difference. Any players familiar with the game will see +4 BAB at level 5 and think of it as an editing error instead of a true class feature.

So you have to put in lots of extra work mandating a specific rule set, explaining the table, and helping players work with fractions as they build their characters... and after all of that, what do players get? A +1 bonus to hit. Sometimes. I understand that you're interested in experimenting with your game, but there doesn't seem to be a provable benefit for all the extra mental strain you will be putting on your players. If you want to make shifter totemists better at hitting things, a class feature that gives +1 to-hit can give you almost exactly the same results without all the extra pain.

PhantasyPen
2018-08-28, 01:08 PM
@Just to Browse:Okay, I see the problem based on how substitution levels supposedly normally work, but at the same time, it feels like the scenario you propose involves a significant failure in logic on the part of the person actually reading the class. Now do you have anything to comment on the actual abilities or are you just here to tell me to stop trying to test something?

Just to Browse
2018-08-28, 02:36 PM
Adding fractional BAB together and then remembering it from level to level has little to do with logic and more to do with math / memorization. That's why I recommend against it.

I commented on Aug 23 about the abilities that I thought were appropriate. The thread moved on from there with a single exception -- the discussion of full BAB, which I thought wasn't resolved. So I followed up on it. This is how forum discussions work -- Person A writes words, Person B responds to those words, Person A replies to those responses, etc. I think you'd be better off not snarking at constructive feedback from this forum even when it disagrees with you, given that the very title of this thread is about brainstorming.

Just to jump in front of a defense that you seem to be bringing up frequently -- Something being a "test" does not give it free reign to be bad. If I told someone that I was going to run into a wall to see what happens, and they told me "It's obviously going to hurt so don't do it," I am not within my rights to say "hey it's just a test jeez lay off." The output of this experiment is pretty clear. You will spend extra player time & rules text for marginal gain, which is widely considered a bad tradeoff if your goal is player retention / engagement.

I guess this comment doesn't matter much. You have set certain design items in stone regardless of their quality. Given that you're not a big fan of feedback on those fronts, I'm going to step out before this risks becoming more "storm" than "brain". Good luck with the sub-levels!