So I think I procrastinated about this contest so hard that my brain actually just repressed it out of my memory. Oops.

But I'm back now, so let's get back into things

Quote Originally Posted by Damon_Tor View Post
Thoughts on the Occultist:

Generally: I like it a lot. I feel like you should simplify the mechanics and broaden the fluff.

I like the core mechanic, talisman creation. It's cool and versatile. A class built from the ground up as the "Spell Storing Item" class is neat.

In terms of the fluff, I'm not really buying the connection between talisman creation and forbidden lore. Again, I like the mechanics behind the talismans, but I still don't see why it's an ability unique to the guys who read from the forbidden section of the library. If you free the core class from this overspecific roleplay niche your subclasses would be free to explore more varied themes.

I'm not at all sure why the spell progression switches to Mystic Arcanum halfway through. For warlocks, this makes sense as a way to limit their higher level spells to 1/day where their lower slots regenerate when they take their lunch break, but the Occultist has daily slots at all levels. If this is to limit their talismans to only work with 1st-5th level spell slots... well, just say you can only use 1st-5th level slots to make talismans. No need for a second system to track.

To the specific talismans, in general I don't really see why you need multiple types: almost all of them are, to one degree or another, the equivalent of a Talisman of Spell Storage. Does the Talisman of Anti-Magic really need its own entry? Do we really need a Talisman of Anti-Possession, a Talisman of Protection, and a Talisman of Spell Storing with Protection from Evil and Good? Even if they all function slightly differently in one way or another, the conceptual overlap makes them feel very redundant. My suggestion would be to eliminate the other types entirely and just build the whole feature into the Spell Storing talisman. Maybe generally allow for "upcasting" the talisman to create charges (as implemented currently in the Talisman of Anti-Magic).
This makes a whole bunch of sense, the talisman system was kind of thrown onto the Occultist after I scrapped some of the original theming, so it feels rather disjointed from the rest of the class. I think the best way to fix this problem is to effectively make the talisman system into a class by itself, getting rid of the rest of the occultist entirely. But as this is effectively starting from scratch, I'm not sure how well I'll actually be able to do so with only ~2 weeks until the deadline. Additionally, I think this hypothetical class would work well if the talisman system effectively replaced normal spell casting (which would probably work better for a theme like Spells Without Slots rather than Partial Casters), so I think what I'm going to do is resign from this contest. I don't have the time to do what I want to with my class, so I'm just going to leave it, especially as stuff has been a bit hectic for me recently.

Good luck to the rest of you though!