Trying to Brainstorm a Homebrew Class

[MaxieZeus]

working on a homebrew class that takes influence from Artificers, the Mystic, and a favorite 3.5 class of mine, the Totemist, but I was wondering if someone could help me brainstorm

The basic premise of it, is that it is called the "Mystic" for lack of a better word, which focuses on channeling life energy through your Chakras. When you start the class you get 2 of your Chakras, and as you gain more levels, you get more of them, until you eventually get all 6.

Because Body Slots are no longer a thing, I tied each of the Chakras to one of the ability scores and crossed it with a body part.
Head (Crowns, Goggles, Helmet) Intelligence
Torso (Armor, Amulets, Clothes) Constitution
Hands (Rings, Gloves, Swords, shields) Strength
Waist (Belts, Pants) Charisma
Feet (Boots, Greeves) Dexterity
Back (Clothes, Mantles) Wisdom

There are also 6 subclasses associated with one of each of the Slots, giving you bonuses and extra spells. Each subclass channels life energy from a specific source. You are directly linking to the Astral Plane where all spiritual energy is pooled.

Psions use the Human Spirit, channeling it through the Head Chakra to give them enhanced psychic powers associated with class ESP abilities like Telepathy, Telekinesis, etc.

Totemists use the Beast Spirit, channeling it through the Torso Chakra to enhance their Constitution and giving them access to various animal abilities, sorta like Animal Man from DC Comics

Tuners use the Life Energy in machines and crafts to enhance their strength. Every tool, every work of art, is imbued with both its natural spiritual energy from its base materials, but also the spiritual energy of the creator who made it. They are the Skill Monkey Subclass of the archetype

I also have Draconic and Plant life energy being associated with Charisma and Wisdom respectively

But I can't for the life of me figure out what should be Dexterity

[Nifft]

Rogues and Rangers (archers) are both a good fit for Dexterity.

[BerzerkerUnit]

Here’s a link to a soulmelder class I’m in the middle of formatting for final draft.

You are welcome to mine it for inspiration.

The most relevant part is probably how I made melding the result of channeling the energy of certain planes.

The Incarnate Subclass pulled from Axiomatic planes of law, chaos, good, and evil.

Totemist subclass drew from the Feywild.

Necrocarnate subclass pulled from the Shadowfell.

Looking back I could probably pare down meld rules to something like: Skill Melds, Feat Melds, Equipment Melds, and Spell Melds. So I don’t needs 13 pages of often very similar meld write ups.

Ugh, I could probably roll it all together as an Artificer subclass.

[MaxieZeus]

Rogues and Rangers (archers) are both a good fit for Dexterity.

This is for its own class. I'm guess I didn't properly explain my thing. All of those options, the Psion, the Dragon, the Totem, the Tuner. They are all subclasses of the MYSTIC class. These aren't subclasses for other classes.


Here’s a link to a soulmelder class I’m in the middle of formatting for final draft.

You are welcome to mine it for inspiration.

The most relevant part is probably how I made melding the result of channeling the energy of certain planes.

The Incarnate Subclass pulled from Axiomatic planes of law, chaos, good, and evil.

Totemist subclass drew from the Feywild.

Necrocarnate subclass pulled from the Shadowfell.

Looking back I could probably pare down meld rules to something like: Skill Melds, Feat Melds, Equipment Melds, and Spell Melds. So I don’t needs 13 pages of often very similar meld write ups.

Ugh, I could probably roll it all together as an Artificer subclass.

Necrocarnate could be interesting for the last one. I was thinking of making that the "Evil" subclass like the Death Cleric and not include it as the core 6 subclasses.

The way my class works is you get to unlock 2 Chakras of your choice at 1st level, which gets you access to all the Psionic Abilities in those Chakras. The at 2nd Level you get your subclass, which unlocks a 3rd Chakra related to it's body (the Psion Mystic unlocks the Head Chakra, the Totem Mystic unlocks the Heart Chakra, etc). You get a set number of Psionic Points plus your ability modifier for the Subclass. So Psion gets additional points equal to your Intelligence modifier, Totem gets points equal to your Constitution modifier. This is the only part that is affected by your other stats. The class is primarily an Intelligence class, with each subclass focusing on a different Ability.

My problem atm is I can't think of what the "Feet Chakra" or "Dexterity Subclass" should be.

Tuner is Art and Invention and connected to the Hand Chakras (Strength) (This class is related to an animist/shinto idea that everything we build has its own soul, made from our own soul and the soul of the materials used to make it, so a Car has its own soul that a Tuner can access)
Totemist is Beast and connected to the Heart Chakra (Constitution)
Psion is Humanoids and connected to the Mind Chakra (Intelligence)
Woodland is Plants and Fungi and connected to the Back Chakra (Wisdom)
Draconic is Dragons and connected to the Waist Chakra (Charisma) (This is flavoured as Dragons having Souls so big that they can substitute entire groups and ideas of other life)

In addition to unlocking your 3rd Chakra, you get a set of Cantrip like abilities associated with each Chakra you have unlocked. This upgrades as you level up and unlock more Chakras. With each Subclass having a signature cantrip in their respective one. The Dragon Mystic's Waist Cantrip gives them the ability to fire off an Elemental Energy attack as an Action. The Psion's Head Cantrip gives them the GOOlock's Telepathy ability.

Different Psionic Abilities cost different amounts of Psi points.

And that's really it. It's a Full Spellcaster like Wizard with Features associated with each subclass.

[BerzerkerUnit]

I’m looking forward to seeing how it turns out.

[Yakk]

I had a sketch of a set of classes that used focal points on the body to etch runes.

Each class went from 1 to 4 runes over the 20 levels. 1 of their 4 runes locations was unique to their class; the other was shared with another class. You could not bind the same type of rune to two locations on your body.

The runes granted some abilities, and access to others. You'd then learn talents, gated by your runes, on a half-caster like schedule.

These talents would grant a variety of abilities, some per-short-rest, some per-long-rest, some at-will.

I never finished it, but it had a mechanically distinct feeling while still feeling 5eish.