The Ryu [base class | fill with holes!!]

[Tyrolin]

I think it works, so please help me with balance and such.

The Ryu.
Hit die : d10
Base attack bonus: Full
Good saves : All
Weapon and Armor: All simple and martial weapons : Light and medium armor : Light and heavy shields

Progression Table
{table]Level | Special
1 | Magic Pool, Healing touch
2 | Ascension(Whelp)
3 | Mettle
4 | Ascension(Fire, Frost, Lightning)
5 | Ascended Resistance(+5)
6 |
7 | Improved healing touch
8 | Ascension(Adult, Mutant)
9 | Heal All
10 | Ascension(Radiance, Shadow)
11 | Imp Nat Res (+10)
12 | Ascension(Warrior, Behemoth)
13 | Greater Mettle
14 | Greater healing touch, Improved Heal All
15 | Ascension(Kaiser)
16 | Grtr Nat Res (+15)
17 | Greater Heal All
18 | Ascension(Failure)
19 | Raise Dead
20 | Bone Break[/table]

This is the abilities explained, it's long, but don't be scared!
Magic Pool
The maximum Mana a Ryu can have in his mana pool is equal to his wisdom modifier times his Ryu level. This Mana replenishes after two hours of peaceful, uninterrupted concentration or a full night of sleep.

Ascension (Long....and wordy...sorry)
This is the ability that the Ryu is named for. This allows a Ryu to take the from of a dragon-like creature. Ascending is a full-round action that prevokes attacks of opportunity. The brackets after the word 'Ascension' show the new genes that a Ryu can apply after he gains that level when he ascends. To Ascend, the Ryu selects up to three genes he can apply to his ascension, and then becomes a different dragon-like creature depending on his choice. For all forms other than Kaiser and Warrior, the Ryu loses all his worn equipment, but gains a natural armor bonus to AC equal to 1/2 his armor bonus to AC before he Ascended. (note: if wearing a wisdom enhancing item, the effect is not lost, so your total Magic pool does not decrease)

Ascending drains Mana equal to the total cost of all the genes selected, and then drains half of that cost (rounded up) from the Ryu at the beginnig of each round after that. The Ryu can hold his dragon-like form as long as he has at least one Mana in his Magic Pool to pay any part of the Ascending cost. If he has zero Mana, choses not to pay the cost, or is reduced to zero hit points, he reverts back to his normal form, which retains all the HP it had when it Ascended, regardless of damage he had taken while Ascended. If he was reduced to zero hit points, however, the Ryu is stunned for 1 round and staggered for one more.

There are three catagories of genes: Element, Type, and Miscellanous.

The Elements are Fire, Frost, Lightning, Radiance and Shadow. Selecting one of these in conjunction with a Type gene (other than Kaiser), allows the Ryu to access the Elemental powers from the Types form he selects. Selecting two allows him to access both, and selecting all three turns the Ryu into an Adult with access to all the Elemental powers, along with a tri-breath and tri-claw attack which deals elemental damage from all three types. (Radiance's elemental type is positive energy, and Shadow's is negative energy)

The Type genes are Whelp, Adult, Mutant, Warrior, Behemoth, and Kaiser. These allow the Ryu to take a different dragon-like form, and a Ryu must and may only select one of these upon Ascending. Mutant allows you to Ascend without changing your form, giving you all the benifits of the genes you select while also letting you blend in with others of your race. A mutant has a breath weapon that does damage equal to an Adult's, but only if an elemental gene is selected

The Miscellanous gene is Failure. The Failure gene allows you to completely control the Kaiser gene.

Genes
{table]Gene name|Mana cost|GN|MC|GN|MC|GN|MC
Fire|4|Whelp|2|Behemoth|10|Mutant|4
Frost|4|Adult|4|Kaiser|40|Radiance|6
Lightning|4|Warrior|10|Failure|1|Shadow|6[/table]

Elemental Abilities

____breath - A cone (range depends on Type gene selected) which deals damage of the type specified, it does damage based on the Ryu's HD and the Type gene selected. The damage die increases to a d6 for each HD. This costs 4 Mana

____claw - As a standard action the Ryu can make an attack against one opponent that does 2d8 extra elemental damage against that opponent. This cost 2 Mana

Type gene forms and abilities:
Whelp: Small size. +2 to all physical ability scores. Special: Whelp Breath: 15 foot cone does 1d4 force damage for each HD of the Ryu and costs 0 mana. This breath does 100% damage when the whelp is at full HP, and 0% when the whelp is at 0 HP. Gains fly 20 ft(poor). The Whelp gains a (primary) claw attack and a (secondary) bite attack with the same bonus to hit and damage as his weapon (+x)

Adult: Large(tall) size. +4 to all physical ability scores. Special: Adult Breath: 30 foot cone does 2d4 foce damage for each HD of the Ryu and costs 2 mana. This breath has the same percentage damage as the whelp breath(Gains fly at base land speed(average). The Adult gains a (primary) claw attack and a (secondary) bite attack with the same bonus to hit and damage as his weapon (+x)

Warrior: Med size. +6 to all physical ability scores. Special: A warrior only has a breath attack if a elemental gene is selected. It does damage as an Adult breath weapon. The warrior is unnaturally fast, and acts as if under the haste spell as long as he is in this form. Gains fly base land speed +10 ft(perfect)

Behemoth: Huge size (10ft/10ft) reach only 5ft. +10 to str and con. Special: A Behemoth only has a breath attack if a elemental gene is selected. It does damage as an Adult breath weapon. The Behemoth's base land speed decreases by 10 ft (min 5). The Behemoth gains DR 15/-. A behemoth gains a (primary) bite attack (with improved natureal attack(bite)) and a trample attack, as well as a gore attack. Also, instead of the standard natural armor bonus, the Behemoth gains an AC bonus equal to its armor's full AC bonus +10.

Kaiser: Only physical change, golden hair. All physical ability scores +10. Special: Kaiser breath: A Kaiser only has one breath attack. This breath attack is a 60 foot cone and does 4d6 force damage per HD of the Ryu and costs 12 mana, with the same percentage tapering as a Whelp. The Kaiser can also make a bonebreak attack 1/transformation. The Kaiser acts as if under haste and gains DR 15/-. The Kaiser's base land speed increases to 90ft. There is a 25% chance each round that the Kaiser goes out of control, attacking the nearest living thing instead of his enemies, though he will always attack the last thing that damaged him, if one does. After going out of control, the Kaiser has a 25% chance each round to come back under control. While out of control the Kaiser cannot use any of his special attacks.

Ascended Resistance: the Ryu gains (element)energy resistance __ when Ascending using any of the Elemental genes

Spellwork
The Ryu's caster level for all heal spells is equal to his total HD.

Healing touch: as cure light wounds that costs 2 mana
Imp healing touch: as cure severe wounds that costs 6 mana
Grtr healing tough: as cure critical wounds that costs 18 mana

Heal all: as cure light wounds, mass. costs 6 mana
Imp heal all: as cure critical wounds, mass. costs 18 mana
Grtr heal all: as Heal, mass. costs 30 mana

Restore to life: as True resurection. Costs 50 mana. 1 / week.

Bonebreak: The Ryu can make one attack/hour as a bonebreak attack. This use must be declared before the attack roll (so a miss ruins the attempt). The bonebreak deals automatic critical damage on a successful hit, and if the roll indicates and confirms critical damage, it does damage as if the critical modifier were one step up (2x would be 3x, 3x 4x, etc)

[tyckspoon]

It's a good try. Should be pretty easy to tune up.

Name: I'd probably call it 'Brood Warrior', although that requires knowing more about the source material than Ryu does. There's probably a decent more generic name that somebody else can suggest.

All good saves is going to trigger some people's sense of imbalance, but I can't really think of a reason why the class shouldn't have them, fluff-wise.

I would give the class heavy armor proficiency too, but it probably won't make too much difference; I'm guessing the ideal armor for this class is going to turn out to be Mithril Breastplate. The Dragon forms will be giving too much extra Dex to want to cap it short with Full Plate.

Other basic class information: You forgot to give him skills. For simplicity, just yoink another class's skills per llevel and class list. I'd probably go with.. Ranger? *shrug* Just make sure Profession (Fisherman) is there.

Ascension, general: You need to specify whether the Dragonboy keeps the benefits of his equipment while transformed into a non-humanoid shape. The simplest and probably best-balanced answer is no. The Whelp, Adult, and Behemoth shapes should get natural weapons; probably a Bite for the Whelp, Claw/Claw/Bite for Adult, and.. an Improved Natural Attack (Bite) for the Behemoth, plus perhaps a Trample attack.

The percentage-dependent breath weapons are probably going to be a headache to deal with in-game. I would recommend changing this to being based on fixed percentages: When Dragonboy is at 100-76% Hp, his breath does 100% damage. 75-51%, 75% damage, and so on. Still mathy, but it lets the player and/or the DM figure out a few set points where they need to change the damage instead worrying about the exact percentage of health remaining. Alternately, instead of using percentage scaling, you could step down the die size: d4 would drop to d3, then d2, and then nothing because the character is unconscious from HP damage.

Magic Pool: Hmm. What kind of stat-spread are you imagining for this class? It's a melee character at core, which means a Dragonboy is already going to be looking at Str and Con at a minimum like almost every other fighter-type. This adds a requirement for a Wis that is at worst decent (It needs a 14 Wis to even use the Ascension feature at level 1) and at best as high as it can possibly be pushed. That might be a little rough on point-buy creation, since the character can't count on purchased magic items to make up for a starting deficiency and can't afford a Wizard's laser-focus on just the one stat.


This Mana replenishes after two hours of concentration or a night of sleep.

You should specify what kind of conditions are necessary for the concentration. Does it need the same kind of peace as a wizard resting to recover spells? Do and experience nothing that would require a Concentration skill check? Just spend all his standard actions for the period 'concentrating', which would allow him to keep walking around?


or is reduced to zero hit points, he reverts back to his normal form, which retains all the HP it had when it Ascended, regardless of damage he had taken while Ascended.

This part, this is powerful. Some kind of drawback to help prevent Ryus from recklessly abusing the free HP would be good, I think (although needing a full round action to turn back in the middle of a fight is already bad.) Maybe stun or stagger the Ryu for a round after being forcibly detransformed (by way of HP loss). What happens if the Ascended Ryu is subjected to an instant-death effect or a polymorphing effect like Baleful Polymorph or Flesh to Stone?

Ascension, Whelp: I would swap this with Healing Touch in the progression. At level 1, your Ryu is probably only going to have enough mana pool to transform for one or two rounds. The Whelp shape doesn't really offer enough for a 1st level character to spend a full-round action transforming; 1d4 breath damage is fairly pathetic and a Small creature's natural attack is a pretty poor trade for a manufactured weapon. The flight is handy, but there's not all that much you can do with a low speed at Poor maneuverability for only a couple of rounds. At level 2, the mana pool doubles and Dragonboy now has both the ability and possibly the motivation to turn into a Whelp for a few rounds; the Whelp's force-damage breath could be useful, even with the lower damage.

Also, you forgot to mention what sort of area Whelp Breath is. I'm guessing you meant for Whelps to breath the 15-foot cone?

Healing Touch: Like I said, switch it with Ascension (Whelp). An extra Cure Light or 2 is far more useful to a low level party, and it fits better with the source game. Unless you were playing an extreme low-level challenge, Ryu learned Heal well before he was able to Ascend controllably.

Evasion: Ok? It's a nice enough ability, but I'm not sure where it fits in either the fluff of the source or in the mechanical concept of the class. Mettle (same effect, but for Fort and Will saves) might work better [the inner strength of the dragon allows Dragonboy to shrug off mental attacks and dangers to his body, perhaps.]

Ascension, Elements: Straightforward enough, for the most part. Any special reason you didn't also put Radiance and Shadow somewhere in the class? They'd be simple enough to do as dealing positive/negative energy damage. Adding energy resistances to these would be nice and not very unbalancing, I think. It could be done as a progressing feature:
Ascended Resistance: The Ryu gains Energy Resistance (type of elemental genes used) 5/10/15/20 when Ascended using one or more Elemental genes.
Would be handy to help fill in the blank levels.

I would also lower the Mana cost for the ___ Claw attacks. 4 mana is the same cost as staying transformed for another round for an Elemental Adult, and more expensive than being transformed for an Elemental Whelp (who probably doesn't have enough mana pool to afford using the Claw regularly as is.) Perhaps this could be an adjustable attack; have it do an extra 1d6 damage per point of mana spent on it, up to d6/level?

Claws also need an action type. Is this a boost that can be added to any normal attack? Is it an attack in its own right (probably standard action)?

Uncanny Dodge: Eh? This kind of looks like you were just stuck for something to put in and didn't want a dead level there. What's the rationale?

Improved Healing Touch: I would make this Cure Serious. At this level, a Cleric can provide Cure Critical if needed, which makes Cure Moderate look kind of sad. Cure Moderate will also not provide enough healing to be significant in-combat, and out of combat Dragonboy would be better served to use the standard Healing Touch 3 times for 3d8 + (5x3). Oh, and you should mention what the Ryu's effective caster level for his Cure effects is. I'm guessing = HD. And what kind of ability Healing Touch et al are; either Spell-likes or Supernatural would be good.

Ascension (Adult): Whoo, now we're getting somewhere! Large tastyness, a decent flight speed, stat increases that probably cover for the magic items that became nonfunctional by melding into your body, and a breath weapon that doesn't suck (yay force damage!) All that plus what should be enough mana pool to sustain the shape throughout an extended fight and/or transform for a few fights in a row. If you take my suggestion for natural attacks on this shape, you've got something pretty nice.

Let's see.. level 8, assume a starting 14 Wis and both levelup points into it, so.. 48 mana pool at this point. Adult form could be maintained for 22 consecutive rounds. Or, making another assumption (lets say fights last for four rounds) 4x4 points to transform is 16, plus 32/2= 16 rounds transformed. Your Ryu could enter all of his standard allotment of fights as an Adult dragon, assuming he did nothing else to spend his mana pool. If that was what you wanted, good; if not, the cost for the Adult transformation should be increased.

Ascension, Mutant: This should probably specify that you only get the stat improvements, breath attacks, and other special qualities (DR, haste, possible energy resistances). Staying in the natural form should not result in size changes or gaining a flight speed. On the plus side, you'd get to keep wearing your armor, using your sword, and enjoy the assorted miscellaneous magic items that you should have by this point. Well worth an extra 4 mana points, and might be worth even more.

Heal All: Simplify it to 'as mass cure light wounds.' The class is getting this effect at the same time a Cleric does, which is conceptually odd for something that isn't a dedicated healer. Balance-wise, it shouldn't be a problem; cure light, mass is a pretty sucky spell, and the Ryu is going to want to save his mana for Ascension by now.

Ascension, Failure: I think I'm missing something here. It appears that this would allow people to make budget Ascensions by doing Whelp+Failure for 3 mana/1 maintain, and be guaranteed to turn into something better. Possibly a risk of turning into a Berserk Kaiser and slaughtering your entire party, but was this really the intended use? If so, that's quite abusable, especially once you get Improved Failure and get a shot at a nearly free controlled Kaiser.

Ascension, Warrior: Ah, the Warrior. Possibly the game's best Ascension form. You've made it pretty sweet here, too. Permahaste and perfect flight, plus better stat enhancements than gear is likely to provide at this level. It's also humanoid enough to keep most of your gear around; the wings might make a problem with armor, but you can keep your greatsword and other stuff. Probably too expensive to use as a go-to form, but still something you can pull out if something really needs beating up.

Ascension, Behemoth: In contrast, this one, much like in the game, is kind of disappointing. Huge is nice if you want to sit on somebody (standard Huge space is 15, btw), but other than that.. you get a lot easier to hit, you don't get expanded reach, you get slower, you don't fit indoors, and you don't get a breath weapon. DR is nice, but DR 5 isn't enough to really slow down melee threats at level 12. If left as is, I would move this form down a couple of levels. To improve it, give it a nice hefty bite attack (Improved Natural Attack (bite) would be 3d6 base damage, which is ok but not anything really special at this level) and perhaps up the DR and/or give it a nice whack of Natural Armor.

Greater Healing Touch: Move it up to Cure Critical. A dedicated healer is dropping Heals by this point. Anything lower is pretty much obsolete at high levels, but Cure Critical can at least pretend to make a difference.

Impr. Healing All: Mass Cure Serious, same as recommended for Impr. Healing Touch.

Ascension, Kaiser: You didn't actually put any mechanics for Berserk Kaiser in here. Borrowing the line from the Frenzied Berserker should do (it's something like 'The Berserk Kaiser cannot tell friend from enemy and will attack random targets until all nearby creatures are dead.) In order to have some chance that this will *not* be a TPK, I'd recommend that the Berserk Kaiser only use melee attacks and not attempt to nuke his own party with his breath weapon or use his Bonebreak special.

Now.. really expensive to transform. Dragonboy will probably only be able to hold the transformation for around three rounds, and he'll need two hours rest to be able to do anything else besides be a Fighter afterwards. Is it worth it? It might be. Character stays humanoid, which is important at high levels; he really needs his gear to keep up. The breath weapon is on par with a Split Disintegrate; it might actually be a nuke worth using, at least at high health. Haste and DR are nice, although once again the DR should be higher to be really useful at this level. Bonebreak is nifty; a Shocktrooper charge machine could make good use of that. Is the Bonebreak on the same timer as the level 20 ability, or is it useable 1/Kaiser transformation?

Greater Heal All: Move it up to Cure Critical and lower the mana cost. This won't restore anywhere near enough HP to be worth the cost; to reflect the effects of the BOF III equivalent, you'd need Mass Heal.


Raise Dead: Again, lower the mana cost. It's possible that a Dragonboy could get to this level and not have enough mana pool to even cast the spell. Unlikely, assuming inherent bonuses from Tomes/Wish can improve the mana pool, but possible. If you're worried about spamming this, you've got a hard time-limit usage cap on it that makes it impossible. Also change the name (to what, I don't know) so it's not confused with the actual Raise Dead spell.

Bonebreak: Nice. Possibly a little underwhelming for a level 20 capstone, but nice.

[Tyrolin]

Wow. Thanks a lot. You help is greatly appreciated,

(even though now I have to change all that stuff cuz you're right):smallbiggrin:

Edit: There, that should take care of just about everything. Let me know if I missed/forgot something

[Tyrolin]

Geez, nothing else? Is it that good, or does no one want to read it?

I spoilered a few things, just for readability purposes, in case someone does think I missed something or whatnot.