Psychic Warrior Variant (Feral)

[CaptainSynapsis]

Anyone care to take a look and tell me how balanced you think this is? Before you immediately say "It's unbalanced, you hack!", consider that this class gets no weapon or armor proficiencies.

Feel free to post ideas on how to make it more balanced as a base class. Also, feel free to post ideas on what to call it...

Note: I don't care about powergaming or how many ways I can drop thirty bazillion dice on the table in a single round--this is a flavor class.



Alignment: Any non-Lawful

Hit Die: d10


{table]Level |BAB |Fort |Ref |Will |Special |PP/Day |Powers Known |Max Power Level Known

1 |+0 |+2 |+0| +0 |Bonus Feat, Speed +10, Claws (1d8) |0|1|1st
2 |+1 |+3 | +0 |+0 |Bonus Feat, Scent|1|2|1st
3 |+2 |+3 |+1 |+1 |Improved Grab |3|2|1st
4 |+3 |+4 |+1 |+1 |Fast Healing 1, +1 Nat AC |5|4|2nd
5 |+3 |+4 |+1 |+1 |Bonus Feat, Darkvision 20 |7|5|2nd
6 |+4 |+5 |+2 |+2 |+2 Str, +2 Wis |11|6|2nd
7 |+5 |+5 |+2 |+2 |Pounce, +1 Nat AC |15|7|3rd
8 |+6 |+6 |+2 |+2 |Bonus Feat, Darkvision 40, Fast Healing 2 |19|8|3rd
9 |+6 |+6 |+3| +3| +2 Str, +2 Con |23|9|3rd
10 |+7 |+7 |+3| +3| Rake, +1 Nat AC |27|10|4th
11 |+8 |+7 |+3| +3| Bonus Feat, Darkvision 60|35|11|4th
12 |+9 |+8 |+4| +4| Fast Healing 3 |43|12|4th
13 |+9 |+8| +4| +4| Rend, +1 Nat AC |51|13|5th
14 |+10 |+9| +4| +4| Bonus Feat, Darkvision 80|59|14|5th
15 |+11 |+9| +5| +5| +1 Nat AC |67|15|5th
16 |+12 |+10| +5| +5| Fast Healing 4 |79|16|6th
17 |+12| +10| +5| +5| Bonus Feat, Darkvision 100|91|17|6th
18| +13 |+11| +6| +6| +1 Nat AC |103|18|6th
19| +14 |+11| +6| +6| Fast Healing 5 |115|19|6th
20| +15 |+12| +6| +6| Bonus Feat, Darkvision 120|127|20|6th[/table]


Class Skills: Autohypnosis, Climb, Concentration, Jump, Listen, Search, Survival, Swim

Skill Points/Level: 2 + Int Mod.

Weapon/Armor Proficiencies: None.

Power Points/Day: As Psychic Warrior

Power's Known: As Psychic Warrior

Maximum Power Level Known: As Psychic Warrior

Bonus Feats: As Psychic Warrior

Other abilities: As Feral Template (Savage Species, pg 116)

[Baron Corm]

If it's just a flavor class and you don't care about mechanics, just give your psychic warrior the feral template. What you did instead was took the psychic warrior, upgraded his BAB, upgraded his hit die, and gave him a free +1 LA template (which is probably worth more, it is from Savage Species after all), while taking away nothing.

Is it balanced against the psychic warrior? No. I don't have any experience with psionics though so I couldn't tell you if it was balanced in general :smallsmile: . If the psychic warrior is generally considered balanced, then no.

[CaptainSynapsis]

There's no increase to his BAB (although thank you for pointing out that it looked that way as originally posted--I've now corrected that).

As for what I took away, this variant gets NO weapon or armor proficiencies.

And yes, it is the Feral Template applied to a base class (Psychic Warrior). That's kinda the point. I'm trying to see how balanced it is from a gameplay perspective.

[CaptainSynapsis]

Alright, I tweaked it a little further. It's a little slow on the growth, and it might need some serious magic items to compete with the average dragon, but as I said before, that's not the point.

I'm considering adding Tumble, Hide, and Move Silently to the list of class skills, seeing as how the character is going to have no armor throughout his career. If I do that, I might also look at adding skill points (4+Int/level). Anyone have any commentary?

[EvilElitest]

Anyone care to take a look and tell me how balanced you think this is? Before you immediately say "It's unbalanced, you hack!", consider that this class gets no weapon or armor proficiencies.

Feel free to post ideas on how to make it more balanced as a base class. Also, feel free to post ideas on what to call it...

Note: I don't care about powergaming or how many ways I can drop thirty bazillion dice on the table in a single round--this is a flavor class.





I am all in support of Flavor classes, but it needs fluff, back ground, description ect.
from,
EE

[CaptainSynapsis]

All the trappings will come once I have a good feel for how the class balances. If I need to make changes, it isn't efficient to have to go back and rewrite entire chunks of a class description, how it fits into a party, things like that. This is mechanics balance only right now; I'll fill in the rest once I know if this will be the final version of the class.

[Nebo_]

Flavour doesn't have to come at the cost of balanced mechanics. It seems that you just can't be bothered balancing it.

[CaptainSynapsis]

Why do you say that? I'm just trying to make sure I didn't miss anything. Or is this the wrong place to get informed opinions and critique?

[Nebo_]

I say that because you just added stuff to the class while taking almost nothing away. Missing? You missed balance almost completely.

[Psionic Dog]

As someone who likes playing psionic warriors let me say this:

This Is Over Powered. It's not cheese over powered, but it's still over powered.

You have just taken a psionic warror and given it more HPs and a bucket full of special abilities, some of which would individual overpower this class.

Scent? Improved Grab? Bonus Speed? Bonus Natural Armor? Yes please. I would gladly give up armor for this stuff. With claws that do long-sword damage I'll drop my weapons too. Two or Three feats or a level dip and I can have most of that back anyway. Totally worth it.

But wait, there's more! Pounce? Rake? Pure icing. Pure win. Forget that old psi-warrior, I have a new best friend.

Now, what is this Fast Healing Thing? That has to be a typo. That stuff is 10 times better than a barbarians damage reduction. Fast Healing 3 is an epic feat now yours by level 12! Never risk bleading to death, start every encounter at full health (less than 5 minutes rest required), I can't wait to find a door-mat DM who will let me play this!


Face it, this class is baddly broken and overpowered. Don't take this the wrong way, I love the consept, especially since I like playing non-humanoid characters who can't always use weapons anyway, but it needs to be tonned down.

If you want this to be a prestige class, treat it like the Dragon Desiple only grant the feral template instead of half-dragon.

If this is a base class, start cutting. I'd recomend starting by ripping out all the bonus feats. I know the psionic warrior gets pounce at 4th, but lions charge takes power and power known slot. Either make this abuility require expending a psionic focus or save it for latter in the progression. Bump Rake farther down to. Cut the abuility bonuses. Cut the fast healing. If you really want this to have fast healing, give fast healing 2 as a L20 capstone.

If you manage to take out the broken, then yes, those extra skill points would improve class flavor a lot.

[CaptainSynapsis]

See, now THAT'S the kind of input I needed. Thank you.

Not that I entirely agree, but at least someone finally took an honest look at the class.

[CaptainSynapsis]

As someone who likes playing psionic warriors let me say this:

This Is Over Powered. It's not cheese over powered, but it's still over powered.

Alright, fair enough. I had been of the opinion that taking a level dip and/or losing some basic proficiencies was just another way to balance the effective +1 level adjustment, but apparently I misjudged.


You have just taken a psionic warror and given it more HPs and a bucket full of special abilities, some of which would individual overpower this class.

Scent? Improved Grab? Bonus Speed? Bonus Natural Armor?

I was under the impression that a Medium creature doesn't really benefit much from Improved Grab, since he only get's solid bonuses from it when grappling creatures smaller than himself (though I suppose he could terrorize halflings and pixies with it).

Also, Scent by itself doesn't do much, unless you pile feats on top of it. Otherwise, you've already provoked at least one AoO when pinpointing a hidden foe, more if they have reach. So it isn't as if it were a natural True Seeing effect or anything. At best, it ruins the occasional close-range ambush. Otherwise, it's just a neat trick that can be beaten easily by approaching the character from downwind.

Bonus speed? Not a big deal in a cramped dungeon, less of a deal when fighting anything other than orcs and goblins. Nice for moving around a battlefield or using the Pounce ability, but not much else, combat-wise.

Natural Armor totalling +6 is the equivalent of scale mail, minus the armor penalties. By the time he gets all the little armor bumps, most melee characters have found mithral or adamantine armors of +7 or +8 total enchantments--more if the GM likes handing out loot. I suppose I could change it to a competency or dodge bonus, and say he loses it if he wears armor...


But wait, there's more! Pounce? Rake? Pure icing. Pure win. Forget that old psi-warrior, I have a new best friend.

Alright, I can give you that. Extra attacks per round is a little much. I'll drop these.


Now, what is this Fast Healing Thing? That has to be a typo. That stuff is 10 times better than a barbarians damage reduction. Fast Healing 3 is an epic feat now yours by level 12! Never risk bleading to death, start every encounter at full health (less than 5 minutes rest required), I can't wait to find a door-mat DM who will let me play this!

I'm going to have to flat out disagree with you here. I honestly think the Fast Healing is what makes this a reasonable variant in the first place. Fast healing is a nice perk, no doubt, but it's no regeneration--the character can be killed just as fast as any other. It's more of a resource buff than a combat buff, as you said. I could understand spreading it out more (+1 Fast Healing every 6or 7 levels, perhaps?), but cutting it entirely would mean that this character, with his low AC throughout all 20 levels, is going to need to spend a huge amount of time and resources healing himself.

Without it, every fight is going to wind up draining him for the entire day after he puts himself back together, and that really just defeats the purpose. It winds up making the class a one-fight wonder, and basically worthless (or overly dependant on the graces of the rest of the party) after that. Or worse, it makes a character who's terrified of spending any Power Points, in case he has to heal himself... and heal himself.... and heal himself...


Face it, this class is baddly broken and overpowered. Don't take this the wrong way, I love the consept, especially since I like playing non-humanoid characters who can't always use weapons anyway, but it needs to be tonned down.

If you want this to be a prestige class, treat it like the Dragon Desiple only grant the feral template instead of half-dragon.

If this is a base class, start cutting. I'd recomend starting by ripping out all the bonus feats. I know the psionic warrior gets pounce at 4th, but lions charge takes power and power known slot. Either make this abuility require expending a psionic focus or save it for latter in the progression. Bump Rake farther down to. Cut the abuility bonuses. Cut the fast healing. If you really want this to have fast healing, give fast healing 2 as a L20 capstone.

If you manage to take out the broken, then yes, those extra skill points would improve class flavor a lot.

So, basically, trading weapon and armor proficiencies isn't worth a +1 level adjustment. I'll tinker with it a little, see how to balance this without defaulting to "Psychic Warrior with a +1 Level Adjustment"

[CaptainSynapsis]

Ok, looking at your suggestions again, I have a serious question.

Am I missing some really obvious exploit on one of these abilities? Psionic Dog has suggested cutting or pushing back everything but the minor Natural Armor, Scent, and Darkvision. Are these abilities really so powerful? What am I missing? Because it looks like these are being offered as the equivalent of the ability to eventually use a +5 Vorpal Longsword and wear +5 Mithral Platemail of Heavy Fortification. That just seems absurd, but it may be me.

I just feel that I have either seriously, seriously misjudged the strength of these abilities, or I'm missing something here. I've been playing D&D a long time, but I've never been a powergamer or Min/Max gamer. I've always been a role-player. So there must be some tricks I'm missing here.

There's got to be.

[Nebo_]

You're assuming that there is no multiclassing going on. One level is all it takes to get proficiencies.

[Psionic Dog]

Alright, fair enough. I had been of the opinion that taking a level dip and/or losing some basic proficiencies was just another way to balance the effective +1 level adjustment, but apparently I misjudged.


All of that was a +1 Template!? :smalleek:
Now I don't have Savage Species myself, but if all the non-psionic warrior stuff was feral template I am shocked, because I thought all of that was at least +3, possibly even +4 or +5. If fast healing wasn't part of the template, it still looks like +2 or +3.

Anyway, I divided my critique into 3 groups: The good stuff (natural armor, claw, etc), the very good stuff (pounce, rake), and the unrealistic stuff (fast healing)

You were correct, none of this is cheese (including fast healing). The issue was balance: you took an average class and added lots of stuff to it for very little cost. The features are not equivalent of vorpal weapons, just the mithrile plate mail. :smallbiggrin:


To start: Natural Armor: this only works if the character can't wear armor. However, if the creature can get armor proficiency some place this jacks their armor class up past full-plate meat-shield fighters. Just reduce this to +4 total and it should be fine.

Bonus speed: Actually, this is a big deal. Especially if you take Up the Walls and want to bypass the enemy meat shields or just give the rogue a flank.

Improved Grab: Ok, point to you. This doesn't mean much, until you add in rake, which is strong enough to get bumped down just a few levels further. Free extra attacks give opportunities to exploit.

Scent: Mostly fluff, but it can help track, defeat illusions, or warn of a possible ambush as such, it is slightly better than a feat. Cool ability, but it feels like it should come later to enhance the flavor of becoming more feral with time.

Fast Healing: Ok, so its not 10x stronger than a barbarians damage reduction, but it's still better. As such such the psi-warrior shouldn't get as much of it as a barbarian gets DR, and it definatly shouldn't get it earlier.

Now, what is this about a low AC? See natural armor above.

Also, let me disagree with you about a character being afraid to use his powers: that's like saying a druid will only prepare curing spells. Psionic healing is so bad that anyone who uses their powers for healing is very unoptimized. A fight would drain an armor-less psionic warior less than a Barbarian. Any damage this would take that a normal psionic warrior would not take is made up by the increased HD.

Again, the issue is not that this is uber cheese but that it makes the Psionic Warrior obsolete, and the Psionic Warrior is good enough at all levels to not need 'fixes' anyway.

[deadseashoals]

Well, it's one of the most overpowered +1 LA templates ever created. And it seems obvious to me that trading only proficiencies for ANY +1 LA template is inherently overpowered - all it takes is one level of fighter to get all of the proficiencies back, and you're a level of fighter up on a player that took the template.

[CaptainSynapsis]

You're assuming that there is no multiclassing going on. One level is all it takes to get proficiencies.

Yeah, that's a good point. That was why I tried to spread it thin across the whole class to get the abilities--so that you have to spread yourself out to get everything you want, and that reduces your focus, forces you to sacrifice some benefits in favor of others. But I guess a single level of fighter wouldn't take much away from this class, would it?

[CaptainSynapsis]

All of that was a +1 Template!? :smalleek:
Now I don't have Savage Species myself, but if all the non-psionic warrior stuff was feral template I am shocked, because I thought all of that was at least +3, possibly even +4 or +5. If fast healing wasn't part of the template, it still looks like +2 or +3.

I can't say about the Feral template adjustment. I've used it before, and I've fought it before, and usually it isn't so bad simply because the bonuses are scaled to the creature's hit dice. It only gets ugly when you tack it onto something like a 15 HD Troll with barbarian and fighter levels. But at that point, you've got a nasty surprise for any party without the Feral template--it doesn't tend to make that much of a difference.


Anyway, I divided my critique into 3 groups: The good stuff (natural armor, claw, etc), the very good stuff (pounce, rake), and the unrealistic stuff (fast healing)

You were correct, none of this is cheese (including fast healing). The issue was balance: you took an average class and added lots of stuff to it for very little cost. The features are not equivalent of vorpal weapons, just the mithrile plate mail. :smallbiggrin:

Real quick, this feels like a good time to say thanks to all of you who responded. Just because I don't agree or have reservations agreeing doesn't mean I don't appreciate your time on this.


To start: Natural Armor: this only works if the character can't wear armor. However, if the creature can get armor proficiency some place this jacks their armor class up past full-plate meat-shield fighters. Just reduce this to +4 total and it should be fine.

Point. Like I said, I might make it a Dodge bonus that is conditional on not wearing armor. The variant is supposed to be easy to hit but hard to kill, so the no-armor thing is what I'm actually aiming for.


Bonus speed: Actually, this is a big deal. Especially if you take Up the Walls and want to bypass the enemy meat shields or just give the rogue a flank.

I see your point. My reasoning was such: Psychic Warrior already gets Dimension Door-type powers. Hence, speed becomes largely moot if I can tele-hop. But at lower levels, I can see how this can be easily exploited. I had forgotten about Up the Walls.


Improved Grab: Ok, point to you. This doesn't mean much, until you add in rake, which is strong enough to get bumped down just a few levels further. Free extra attacks give opportunities to exploit.

Like I said, I think I'll toss the four 'feral' feats out. You've convinced me.


Scent: Mostly fluff, but it can help track, defeat illusions, or warn of a possible ambush as such, it is slightly better than a feat. Cool ability, but it feels like it should come later to enhance the flavor of becoming more feral with time.

Hm. I don't know. Acid testing the character, I find that in a straight-up fight, the character doesn't benefit from it anyway, and in an ambush scenario, the character needs all the advance warning he can get.

But that brings up another good point--when I test this class I'm acid testing the character as a straight Psychic Warrior (Feral Variant). I'm not adding in levels of other classes to get skills, abilities, or proficiencies. I guess I'll have to start taking that into consideration.


Fast Healing: Ok, so its not 10x stronger than a barbarians damage reduction, but it's still better. As such such the psi-warrior shouldn't get as much of it as a barbarian gets DR, and it definatly shouldn't get it earlier.

A big point here is that, while the Barbarian gets a weak DR slowly, he also gets Uncanny Dodge, Trap Sense, and Improved Uncanny Dodge. So the Barbarian has bases covered that this class can't cover without spreading itself out. This class tends to get hit with anything it can't smell or trip over, just like a fighter, but without the enchanted armor to soak some of the damage.

One thing I had considered was making the Fast Healing a use-activated feature, like the Warlock's Fiendish Resilience, so that it can only be used so much--or perhaps like the monk's ability to heal itself. But I'm still weighing that option. The other thing is to simply make several of the features entirely dependant on not wearing armor.


Now, what is this about a low AC? See natural armor above.

Alright, alright! You sold me already! It'll be conditional!


Also, let me disagree with you about a character being afraid to use his powers: that's like saying a druid will only prepare curing spells. Psionic healing is so bad that anyone who uses their powers for healing is very unoptimized. A fight would drain an armor-less psionic warior less than a Barbarian. Any damage this would take that a normal psionic warrior would not take is made up by the increased HD.

What I mean is, this class is a damage-sponge, not an evasion or armor tank. Too, Psychic Warriors receive so few power points per day that they must be careful to conserve their abilities, unless they know that they are going to be able to rest following any given battle. Our games are not always so convenient, and the chance to rest is often a bit of a luxury. So if you have 43 PP at level 10 (I'm doing the math roughly), and it takes 23 or so points to lay down two of your daily buffs (Claws of the Beast and Inertial Armor), that means that just a single Dispel Magic/Psionics leaves you having to choose VERY CAREFULLY how you spend the rest of your PP. If you choose wrong, then you wind up with an AC of 15 or 16 when you have to go toe-to-toe with those three ogres blocking the path--and the fact that one of them has some enchanted armor pretty much ruins your day.

Other methods of gaming may throw this off balance. Again, something I hadn't really considered.


Again, the issue is not that this is uber cheese but that it makes the Psionic Warrior obsolete, and the Psionic Warrior is good enough at all levels to not need 'fixes' anyway.

Like I said--flavor, not fix. But you make a good case. I'll drop the extra feral feats, make some of the rest conditional. Is there any reason/way/logical explanation for Fast Healing being conditional, aside from making it use-activated?

[tyckspoon]

This feels kind of dead-horse beating, but not being proficient with armor doesn't stop you from wearing it. If a character can acquire a suit of armor with no armor check penalty, he'll take no penalties from it regardless of proficiency. If you want the class to not wear armor, you need to apply some real penalties for putting the stuff on at all. Changing the natural armor to a dodge bonus reliant on no armor as mentioned earlier would be good. If you wind up keeping them, then making the 'animal' attack improvements (Pounce/Rake/Rend) require not being in armor would also strongly encourage going armorless, at least for a straight-classed character.


I was under the impression that a Medium creature doesn't really benefit much from Improved Grab, since he only get's solid bonuses from it when grappling creatures smaller than himself (though I suppose he could terrorize halflings and pixies with it).

This is what PsyWars know Expansion for.

[CaptainSynapsis]

How about making the fast healing reliant on being psionically focused, as well? That could nerf it so it doesn't prevent a character from bleeding to death at negative HP, and solve some of the OP problem right there.

[Nebo_]

Fast healing doesn't work when you're in negatives anyway.

[CaptainSynapsis]

Fast healing doesn't work when you're in negatives anyway.

Really? Is that an errata change? Because I've always seen it that Fast Healing works just like natural healing--which works just fine when you're at negative HP, so long as you don't die in the meantime.

[TheGrimace]

so...
consensus that you need to tone things down?
but... don't want to take a hit to flavor...
my take...

1.) Fast Movement, 2 claws (1d4), bonus feat
2.) Scent, two weapon fighting
3.) Inertial focus (+1)
4.) Improved grab, Darkvision (20ft) 1 pp
5.) Fast healing 1 (10) 3 pp
6.) Feral fury (1/day), bonus feat. 5 pp
7.) 2 claws (1d6), inertial focus (+2) 9 pp
8.) Rend, Darkvision (40ft) 13 pp
9.) Feral fury (2/day), fast healing 2 (20) 18 pp
10.) Weapon Specialization (claw) 23 pp
11.) Rake, inertial focus (+3) 31 pp
12.) Feral fury (3/day), Darkvision (60ft), Bonus feat 39 pp
13.) 2 claws (1d8), fast healing 3 (30) 47 pp
14.) Pounce, greater Feral Fury 55 pp
15.) inertial focus (+4), feral fury (4/day) 66 pp
16.) darkvision (80ft) 77 pp
17.) fast healing 4 (40) 90 pp
18.) feral fury (5/day), bonus feat 102 pp
19.) inertial focus (+5), 2 claws (2d6) 114 pp
20.) Superior Feral Fury, darkvision (100ft) 127 pp


inertial focus: flavor wise this is similar to natural armor, except that it provides an armor bonus, and does not stack with other armor bonuses.

Feral Fury: A few times a day, a Feral Warrior can fight with the tenacity and clarity of the wild. When he goes into his feral fury, he gains a bonus +2 to his Strength, Constitution, and Wisdom. At 14th level, these bonus all increase to +4, and at 20th level, these bonuses all increase to +6. This frenzy lasts for a number of rounds equal to the 3 + the Feral Warriors Constitution modifier.

On top of this, the classes spellcasting progression drops to that of a ranger...

begins learning powers at 4th level.
learns 1 power per level after that.
learns second level powers at level 8.
learns third level powers at level 11
learns fourth level powers at level 14

improved power point progression, without 6th level spells, means this class will be able to cast its fourth level powers more often.

Could be really annoying at first level, but beyond that, there you go!
WEWT!