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Metastachydium
2020-12-30, 02:18 PM
Important update: Elves was right. HP-based casting's never going to be a thing. BUT! I had an epiphany today, and now I'm confident that I can fix this (I'm probably wrong). All changes to the class will be marked (in this friendly little blue). So, let's see!





And another quick update in this nice bluish colour (i.e. an attempt to answer the most pressing open question about the class, namely "who would want levels in this?")

So, I was terminally bored and therefore squandered my none too precious time on putting together a (probably none too original) prestige class which casts (sort of) from Constitution, because we need more Constitution based (quasi)casters.
I'm not necessarily happy with everything about it (the current capstone is horrible and it might need a better name), but hey, here it is.
(Bonus points go to anyone who correctly identifies my main source of inspiration (which, incidentally, explains why the class has some of its, khm, situationally useful powers)!)

The Vigent

Hit Die
d12.

Requirements

To qualify to become a vigent, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.

Alignment
Any lawful.

Base Attack Bonus
+2

Skills
6 ranks in any one, or 3 ranks each in any two of the following skills: Concentration, Heal, Intimidate, Knowledge (nature), Survival

Feats
Endurance, Diehard, Great Fortitude.

Class Skills

The vigent's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Spot (Wis) and Survival (Wis).

Skill Points at Each Level
4 + Int modifier.

Table: The Vigent


Level
BAB
Fort
Ref
Will
Special
Pulsion Level
Other


1
+0
+2
+0
+2
Pulsions, Meditation, Energy resistance
1
-


2
+1
+3
+0
+3
Toughness, Damage reduction
1
+1 level of existing class

[/TR]

3
+2
+3
+1
+3
-
2
-


4
+3
+4
+1
+4
Toughness, Fine control
2
+1 level of existing class


5
+3
+4
+1
+4
Energy resistance
3
-


6
+4
+5
+2
+5
Toughness, Damage reduction
3
+1 level of existing class


7
+5
+5
+2
+5
-
4
-


8
+6/+1
+6
+2
+6
Toughness, Perfect control
4
+1 level of existing class


9
+6/+1
+6
+3
+6
Energy resistance
4
-


10
+7/+2
+7
+3
+7
Improved Toughness, Readjustment
4
+1 level of existing class



Class Features

All of the following are features of the vigent prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
A vigent does not gain proficiency with any weapon. A vigent is proficient with all types of armour and shields.

Pulsions
A vigent learns to channel his life energy into pulsions. Pulsions resemble spells, but they are not magical in the sense spells are, and as such they cannot be dispelled or blocked by purely magical means and they bypass spell resistance. A vigent must spend a number of hit vitality points on creating each pulsion, as indicated on Table: HitVitality Point Cost of Pulsions. A vigent can use a number of vitality points equal to his maximum hit point total each day. Whenever a vigent takes hit point damage, he must make a Concentration check (DC=the number of hit point lost) or lose a number of vitality points equal to the damage taken. Magical healing does not restore vitality points lost in this manner, but using the Meditation ability or drain life does. A vigent's ability to create pulsions is only limited by the number of hit vitality points he has available.

Table: Hit Vitality Point Cost of Pulsions


Pulsion Level
Standard Cost
With Fine Control
With Perfect Control


1
5
2
1


2
10
5
2


3
-
10
5


4
-
20
10



Meditation (Su)
Twice per day a vigent can enter a trance-like state in which he can force his body to heal faster than it normally would. If a vigent is able to spend 1 minute in this state, he can restore 1d10 hit points lost. This amount increases to 2d10 at level 4 and to 4d10 at level 8.

Energy resistance (Ex)
At level 1 a vigent gains resistance 5 to an energy type of his choice. At level 5 he can choose to increase the resistance gained at level 1 to 10 or to gain resistance 5 to a second type of energy of his choice. If he chose the latter, at level 9 he can increase either of the two resistances gained at levels 1 and 5 to 10. If he chose the former, he can increase the resistance gained at level 1 to 15 or he can gain resistance 5 to an energy type of his choice.

Class features
Every even level, a vigent might gain any of the following features of a class he belonged to before taking vigent levels: rage and trap sense (as barbarian); unarmed damage, AC bonus and unarmoured speed bonus (as monk); fighter bonus feats; marshal auras known; draconic auras and breath weapon damage dice (as dragon shaman); skirmish and scout bonus feats, as applicable.

Improved Toughness

A vigent gains Improved Toughness as a bonus feat at level 10.

Toughness
A vigent gains Toughness as a bonus feat at levels 2, 4, 6 and 8.

Damage reduction (Ex)
At level 2, a vigent gains damage reduction 5/-. At level 6 the damage reduction increases to 10/-.

Fine control
At level 4, a vigent learns to use his life energy more efficiently. The amount of hitvitality points required to create a pulsion is halved (rounded down).

Perfect control
At level 8 a vigent learns to use his life energy with maximised efficacy. The amount of hit vitality points required to create a pulsion is halved (rounded down).

Readjustment (Su)
At level 10 a vigent holds absolute power over his own body, and becomes able to change what it is capable of. Accordingly, the vigent can reassign all his skill points not assigned to a skill that does not allow untrained checks. This ability can only be used once.

Pulsions

1st level pulsions
entrance (throws open any door or gate);
deny access (holds a door or gate shut);
animal form (the vigent severs a chunk of his life force and gives it the shape of a diminutive or tiny animal; the vigent has control over the movements of the animal form and he can see and hear what it sees and hears; irrespective of what creature the animal form resembles it only has one hit point);
burst of daze (affected creatures become dazed for 1d4 rounds);
burst of inspiration (+2 competence bonus on Craft, Forgery and Perform checks for 1 minute).

2nd level pulsions
irresisitible slumber (affected creature falls asleep for 1d10 rounds and cannot be awakened until the duration of the pulsion expires);
mesmerize (affected creature becomes stunned for 1d10 rounds);
burst of energy (removes 1d12 points of nonlethal damage);
burst of anger (as rage);
burst of boredom (allows fascinated creatures a saving throw);
burst of confidence (+4 competence bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, Disguise, Gather Information, Handle Animal and Speak Language checks for 1 minute per two vigent levels).

3rd level pulsions
deprive energy (effected creature becomes fatigued; if the creature is already fatigued, it becomes exhausted; if the creature is already exhausted it becomes unconscious);
burst of discomfort (affected creatures become nauseated for 1d12 rounds, suffer 1d4 points of nonlethal damage per two vigent levels and their base land speed decreases by 10);
burst of sadness (affected creatures take a -2 penalty on attack rolls, saving throws and skill checks for 1d12 rounds (cf. crushing despair));
burst of focus (+2 competence bonus to attack rolls, saving throws and skill checks for 1 minute).

4
burst of bliss (+5 morale bonus to attack rolls, skill checks, ability checks and saving throws for 2d6 rounds; removes 1d6 points of nonlethal damage per two vigent levels);
mist form (disassembles the subject's body and whatever the subject carries into small particles and reassambles it some distance away; a vigent might try to drag another creature with himself when using mist form; on a succesful Fort save said creature suffers 5d10 points of damage and is left behind as the vigent departs; if the saving throw fails, the creature's dead body is reassambled at the vigent's destination);
drain life (touch deals 10d6 points of damage; the vigent is healed for a number of hit points equal to the damage dealt);
restore life (transfers up to 10d6 hit points to the subject).

Will negates burst of inspiration, burst of anger, burst of confidence, burst of sadness and burst of bliss.
Fort halves duration for burst of daze and mesmerize, halves damage for drain life and halves both for burst of discomfort.
Fort negates burst of energy, irresistible slumber, deprive energy and restore life.
Fort partial for mist form (5d10 points of damage instead of death).
A saving throw against any pulsion has a DC of 10 + the level of the pulsion twice + the vigent's Constitution modifier.

Creating a pulsion is a standard action.
Burst-type pulsions are 30-foot-radius bursts centered on the vigent.
Irresistible slumber, mesmerize and deprive energy are line effects with a range of 100 ft. + 5 ft./two levels.
Drain life and restore life require a succesful melee touch attack.
The vigent might attempt to drag along any single creature within a radius of 5 ft. when using mist form.

Elves
2020-12-30, 07:41 PM
Hp casting receives a lot of criticism and is hard to do anyway in 3e where a single heal spell will recharge all your casting points and hp aren't a resource between encounters due to prevalence of fast healing/CLW wands. Hp between encounters=gp and trading gp for spells per day already proved to be a bad gameplay idea with scrolls and wands.

It's probably best to ask yourself what you're trying to achieve and then look for other ways to satisfy it. For example, casting a spell could grant you a debuff -- lowering saves, increasing damage taken, etc. This would be a fun class concept where each spell could offer a unique tradeoff, and the "detriment" would justify unlimited spells per day.

A more questionable idea to achieve the risk factor would be empowering your spells at certain thresholds of hp loss, or even requiring them to cast spells -- maybe you need to be missing 10% of your hp per spell level to cast a spell of a certain level. Would need to couple this with an easy ability to self-damage -- perhaps "temporary damage" that's healed after x rounds.

In that vein, perhaps you could "loan" hit points or other benefits, and they return x rounds later with "interest" in the form of a special benefit, from temporary hit points to the ability to cast a certain spell. That could be a fun blood magic style caster -- you stab yourself with a ritual knife for xd6 damage on round 1 and then 3 rounds later you gain the ability to cast a 9th level spell, so you want to hold out until then. You make a bunch of sacrifices early and then they slowly come due, so it's a way of providing escalation over the 2-4 rounds an encounter usually takes.

Metastachydium
2021-01-01, 02:44 PM
Yeah, I'm not saying those aren't cool options/mechanics, but it's not really what I'm after. I intended to achieve two things:
1. emulate the abilities of a creature (that uses up specific amounts of its life energy to fuel powers similar to those granted by the class above) from an other game via a prestige class;
2. and go around the problem some appear to have with CON-based casting (CON governs hit points, so a CON-based caster would be overpowered).

Metastachydium
2021-06-24, 02:24 PM
Revision done and I'm happy with it! I would appreciate any feedback on this a lot, so if you folks wish to explain why this isn't a good idea, now's the time!

ShiningStarling
2021-07-03, 06:16 AM
So this is a cool idea. I could say a lot about it, but will try to keep it brief.

Firstly, there is in fact a Constitution quasi caster in Pathfinder. They are called Kineticists, and they are pretty cool (would link, but am on mobile, and Google works just fine.) They work off inflicting or dealing with Burn, a scaling self inflicted non healing form of nonlethal damage that they have to sleep to get rid of. They can only accept a certain amount of burn per day, and per round, and they can do certain things, like spend actions channeling, to lower costs.

Health casting always has weird quirks, Kineticists do, and yours does as well. Personally, I do not know which I would prefer myself, I have only briefly dabbled in Kineticist, and your Vit pool seems clunky, but also not enough? Like I feel like health casting should involve some risk to the caster. Maybe flip around the getting hit mechanic? Instead of getting hit forcing Concentration to lose vit, make the Concentration whenever you cast or take the vit as HP damage as well, then add ways to make the check easier? I dunno.

I find the "you can't heal cause you would have to buy CLW wands in bulk" side of the health casting argument to be weird at best, weak at most. Like regular casters can just buy PoP, divine metamagic can use nightsticks, everyone can pay to win in one way or another. I would be inclined to make the recovery of your casting juice based on the quality of food and sleep received, just because it would be different. Make you splurge on a nice meal before and after tough fights, get some investment in Profession (cook) in the party, seems fun.

Anyway, Con casters are neat ideas, but I think you are hard pressed to do anythibg more than an optional side system (ie pay health for spell buffs via blood magic). This becomes apparent in the downgrade from base to prestige class. Which brings me to my last, and possibly most harsh criticism, who would take this prestige class? The casting isn't strong enough for casters, it isn't full BAB for frontliners, and it doesnt scale any prior class features. I guess if Monks could find some room for Con between all their MADness they might like it, but that seems a stretch.

Regardless, cool concept, just... too niche, really.

Metastachydium
2021-07-03, 08:13 AM
First of all: thanks for the feedback!


So this is a cool idea. I could say a lot about it, but will try to keep it brief.

Firstly, there is in fact a Constitution quasi caster in Pathfinder. They are called Kineticists, and they are pretty cool (would link, but am on mobile, and Google works just fine.) They work off inflicting or dealing with Burn, a scaling self inflicted non healing form of nonlethal damage that they have to sleep to get rid of. They can only accept a certain amount of burn per day, and per round, and they can do certain things, like spend actions channeling, to lower costs.

I knew it exists, but it always struck me as somewhat limited by the elemental focus thing and a bit too complicated compared to „normal” mental ability casters. But yes, I'll probably have to take a closer look at it.


Health casting always has weird quirks, Kineticists do, and yours does as well. Personally, I do not know which I would prefer myself, I have only briefly dabbled in Kineticist, and your Vit pool seems clunky, but also not enough? Like I feel like health casting should involve some risk to the caster. Maybe flip around the getting hit mechanic? Instead of getting hit forcing Concentration to lose vit, make the Concentration whenever you cast or take the vit as HP damage as well, then add ways to make the check easier? I dunno.

I don't know. Since the vit point cost of a pulsion is never larger than 20 (otherwise it would be crippling), the Concentration check would be trivial, especially with such a stellar CON score.


I find the "you can't heal cause you would have to buy CLW wands in bulk" side of the health casting argument to be weird at best, weak at most. Like regular casters can just buy PoP, divine metamagic can use nightsticks, everyone can pay to win in one way or another. I would be inclined to make the recovery of your casting juice based on the quality of food and sleep received, just because it would be different. Make you splurge on a nice meal before and after tough fights, get some investment in Profession (cook) in the party, seems fun.

Heh. Yeah, that does sound fun!


Anyway, Con casters are neat ideas, but I think you are hard pressed to do anythibg more than an optional side system (ie pay health for spell buffs via blood magic). This becomes apparent in the downgrade from base to prestige class. Which brings me to my last, and possibly most harsh criticism, who would take this prestige class? The casting isn't strong enough for casters, it isn't full BAB for frontliners, and it doesnt scale any prior class features. I guess if Monks could find some room for Con between all their MADness they might like it, but that seems a stretch.

Yup. I'll have to own up to that. Worse yet, I just realized that with the current prerequisites the only class which doesn't get better casting by default that could enter it without cross-class skill pain is ranger. (On the flip side, it's not difficult to do better than a ranger as far as casting is concerned.)


Regardless, cool concept, just... too niche, really.

Yeah, well. Thanks again! Sad as it is, I might have to drop this idea, after all.

Metastachydium
2021-07-07, 07:34 AM
and it doesnt scale any prior class features.

A quick thought: would it help if (the prerequisites were slightly tweaked and) and on every even level it scaled all the following:
1. rage, trap sense and damage reduction;
2. slow fall, unarmed damage, AC bonus and unarmored speed;
3. fighter bonus feats;
4. marshal auras known;
5. draconic auras and breath weapon damage dice;
6. skirmish and scout bonus feats
as applicable, but no form of spellcasting, manifesting and maneuvers known/readied?

ShiningStarling
2021-07-23, 09:03 PM
A quick thought: would it help if (the prerequisites were slightly tweaked and) and on every even level it scaled all the following:
1. rage, trap sense and damage reduction;
2. slow fall, unarmed damage, AC bonus and unarmored speed;
3. fighter bonus feats;
4. marshal auras known;
5. draconic auras and breath weapon damage dice;
6. skirmish and scout bonus feats
as applicable, but no form of spellcasting, manifesting and maneuvers known/readied?

All I can really think of is that one trickster prestige class in Complete Scoundrel than progresses all class features of a given class for 2/3 of its levels, and I mean... maybe? idk. Always thought it was a bit sloppy, but it could work.

Metastachydium
2021-07-26, 11:04 AM
All I can really think of is that one trickster prestige class in Complete Scoundrel than progresses all class features of a given class for 2/3 of its levels, and I mean... maybe? idk. Always thought it was a bit sloppy, but it could work.

Well, this is not exactly like the uncanny trickster (man, I kind of forgot that's a thing), since it would only advance a number of class features rather than all of them (for most classes, anyway, but fighters don't count for obvious reasons). A lot of prestige classes advance stuff like rage or unarmed damage or sneak attack (cf. skirmish). This one'd just do so for a lot of classes. I'll give it a shot and see what it looks like.

ShiningStarling
2021-07-31, 02:45 PM
Perhaps make it a bit simpler, and just say "Advance all class features except spellcasting from a class you already possess"?

Morphic tide
2021-07-31, 06:44 PM
So, since the thread is staying out of necro territory, I thought I'd make a quick poke at the subject of HP to effect as GP equivalence: Cure Light Wounds wands are 50d8+50 HP for 750 GP, which translates to 275 HP on average for about 2.7 GP/HP. If we go with crafted items like the Artificer, this drops to 1.35 GP/HP. This gives us a very limited power ceiling... unless, of course, we start including Con damage as a higher-value cost, as this does.

Con damage is 25 GP per point via Lesser Restoration, being wiped clean by Restoration at 7th level for 800 GP. Two points of Con damage is therefor 50 GP+2.7 GP/level, if we go with store-bought and are double-dipping the HP cost because mercies of scaling basically. At 7th, when you have access to Restoration scrolls, it's 74.3 GP. A 4th level scroll is way up at 700 GP, meaning it'd cost you 10 Constitution to be "worth" a 4th-level spell like the curative.

But we can go further: Ability drain cannot be dealt with by Lesser Restoration, taking Restoration to clear regardless of scale. This becomes incredibly difficult to judge properly with the binary nature of this recovery, but given it takes 32 points of Constitution damage to make Restoration the better choice for this matter, we could not entirely unreasonably triple the value for the survivability difference, making it able to be judged as being as much as 75+4.05/level per point.

But we can go further: Negative Levels cost a Restoration scroll to fix, and thus have an 800 GP surcharge, in addition to 5 HP and a top level spell slot, with the former being a now-negligible 13.5 GP and the latter being "worth" a no costly components top-level scroll for a PRC like this, starting at 1,513.5 GP. There is no indication you get the spell back if you immediately use Restoration, so I feel safe with this price-tag. This caps at 6 negative levels for the non-scaling portion on account of Greater Restoration being 4,775 GP.

But we can go further: Ability Burn cannot be restored magically. It can exclusively be restored by bedrest. Which can be increased by Mind Over Body in a negative feedback loop of pushing it by adding your Con modifier to naturally recovered ability scores, as well as a DC 15 Heal check doubling, as well as taking a full day off being another doubling. We could in theory price this however we want. Let's mark it down as quadruple the price of regular Con damage, at 100+11.2/level.

And then ability score penalties can be ad-hoc as one feels like, being as how they won't stack with multiple uses and are cleared by Lesser Restoration in bulk. They're vastly more useful as a roundabout way of denying Cure Light Wounds wands to force a poorer return on investment via Lesser Restoration, so maybe judge as 2x the resultant HP losses? There's also the shenanigans around additional physical scores taking more uses of Restoration, if one is going all the way for an Overchannel-esque suite.

We also have the 1 XP/25 GP transaction that is bypassed by nothing that doesn't immediately start snapping the game to pieces when used for such a thing, just by the nature of XP costs. Thought Bottles and the like. Would be a nice bit for expensive component bypasses.

Altogether, that gives us a pretty ready ability to squeeze a quite good amount of WBLmancy in durability transactions without actually being cripplingly dependent on a perfect drip-feed of scrolls and wands to undo it. And by hooking it to endurance for actual spell casting with a list extension consisting of the Pulsions, a PRC like this gets a lot better value going. Double check numbers to be sure...