D&D 5e Base Class Voting Thread III

[Requilac]

[QUOTE=Requilac;23246678]Welcome playgrounders, here is the thread in which you vote for which homebrewed class entered in the current D&D 5e Base Class is the greatest. The voting period will take place between 1:00 am on September 23rd to 11:59 pm on September 30th Eastern Standard time. Votes made outside of that time range while not be included in the total score of each class. You do not need to be part of the competition to vote. If you wish to vote, then give a first, second and third place vote. A first place vote is worth three points, a second place vote is worth two points, and a third place vote is worth one point. A person who votes for their own class must change their vote before the voting period ends or be disqualified. It is suggested that you include the reasoning for your votes, but it is not necessary. Let us begin.

When you make your vote, please also tell us what you would like the next competition's theme to be. It is not necessary to do this, but it would help us out greatly. So far people have suggested the following themes

1) Dragons

2) Monsters (such as vampires, mind flayers or angels) represented as PC classes

3) "Does not meet expectations". Classes that are based on nearly on the opposite of what is expected (e.g. Str based casters, Con based stealth class, Int based berserker). Likely using completely new mechanics/power or the existing rules in a unique way.

If you would like to come up with your own theme, please submit that here.

Time left until voting ends...


Submissions Thread: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...es-(probably-)!

Chat Thread: http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...II-Chat-Thread

Voting Points

The Shaman (by PygmyBatRider): 14 points
The Earthbinder (by Mourne): 7 points
The Planar Warrior (by PheonyxPhyre): 9 points
The Alchemist (By MoleMage): 5 points
The Firestorm Avatar (By Requilac): 6 points
The Geomancer: 1 point

[Requilac]

The Alchemist: I am going to straight up admit that this is really hard to judge its balance. It uses a system which probably doesn't have any sort of precedence aside from maybe the Mystic. It could be fine, it could be overpowered, it could be highly underpowered; I can't really tell.

The Gaien: This class is incredibly underpowered and the document needs some cleaning up, but my main complaint is that they don't have much to do in combat. They don't have spellcasting or extra attack, they just have the mote, which really just doesn't support the theme all that much. In actual play the Gaien would have very limited options and largely be useless in combat.

The Geomancer: The base class grants a lot of passive combat features, even less more the fighter. The subclass seems to be the main power source of the class. I worry that this class is a little too underpowered, or at least would be boring in play, but it may not be as bad as it looks.

The Earthbinder: I must say that this is a very thematically interesting class playing on some unique mechanics, especially awakened stone. It seems to be incredibly well balanced too.

The Shaman: Despite me feeling that the theme is slightly redundant with the druid, this class is very well balanced with a solid mechanical focus. I think this is definitely one of the most well made homebrew classes I have ever seen.

Planar Warrior: Overall the class as a spellcasting one with extra attack has a good purpose, and with some good but not overpowered features. I am struggling to see the theme of planar warrior in this though. The mechanics are fine, but the theme isn’t really consistent and is more than a little misleading.

The Knitecisist: This class has some great potential, but it is way too focused on the manifestations for it to be that great in play. The class’ manifestations are not versatile enough for them to warrant having no other feature. With some editing and added versatility it could work out great but in its current form it is literally an extreme one-trick-pony.

Votes
1) Shaman
2) Earthbinder
3) Planar Warrior

[pygmybatrider]

Votes:

A tough job, this! I found it reasonably easy to pick my top four, and then much harder to narrow it down to three, and then even harder to place them. In particular there wasn't much between the top two; I will try my best to explain my decisions below.

1st: Planar Warrior, by PhoenixPhyre lands the top spot. Out of all the classes I think this is the most ready to 'pick up and play'. Thematically it seems a little close to the Horizon Stalker Ranger, but with a strong elemental flavour, and it fills the void of an Arcane half-caster that so many people have been aching to play. I love that the base class offers features in the form of Planar Ward and Planar Jaunt that are improved upon and made unique by each of the subclasses - it just seems to gel together really well. I would love to try out a Beguiling Summer Planar Warrior myself. The edits PhoenixPhyre made along the way tightened things up, and while it may not be 100% balanced just yet, I think that adjustments could be made on the fly for a player who was interested in this class.

2nd: Earthbinder, by Mourne comes in as a tight runner up. Such a unique concept, clear flavour (even without a starting blurb!), and a really nicely tuned base class. I think the subclasses could still use a little tweaking. This would be a fun class both to play and to DM for, and bring a welcome breath of fresh air to the usual DnD table of sneaky rogue rogue/clever wizard/strong fighter. I somehow forgot to mention in feedback that I think this feels more like an Int-based caster overall than a Cha-based one, but that doesn't lessen my opinion of the class or its design in the least.

3rd: Alchemist, by MoleMage takes the bronze. A lovingly designed class, that just begs you to try all three subclasses just to feel the difference. It ended up here not because I don't like it or think it works mechanically, but simply because I think it would take the most time to get used to at the table. I'm sure it'd be no problem once you've wrapped your head around it - my own submission has a lot of its own features to keep track of - but for that reason I've placed it below the others. I love the feel, I love the feature descriptions, and I think it's a testament to quality of entries in the competition that it was so hard to split them.

Well done to everyone who put the time and effort into entering. It was a blast reading through your work.

Next competition theme:

Put me down for "does not meet expectations". I for one look forward to not meeting your expectations in the competition.... :)

[PhoenixPhyre]

First, sorry for not being able to review the classes more while there was still time. I benefited greatly from your feedback, for which I'm grateful.

My votes:

1st: Shaman (Pygmybatrider). A rare case of adapting a class from a different game that's both faithful to the source and fits the flow and philosophy of 5e. High production value as well and very on-theme.

2nd: Earthbinder (Mourne). Extra points for a new subsystem, but somewhat complex for my taste. I didn't assess balance, but I'm not sure how I feel about the variable spells/day thing. Very on-theme, however.

3rd: Alchemist (MoleMage). Extremely high complexity (which for me is a bit of a negative). I'm concerned about balance both between subclasses and with other classes, but assessing that would take play-testing. Nothing stood out as obviously improper, however. The thematics worked well. Building an alchemist is hard--I designed one (more of a mad scientist/tinkerer with bombs), but this one's better.

As for theme: Don't care. I may participate or not, depending on time and what ideas I have.

[BlueHairedKat]

Alchemist: This is an interesting class; it's very well-made, none of the abilities seem out of place, but it's going to be a lot of cognitive load on whoever's playing it, given each formula has 2-4 of their own heightened effects that you can apply. Balance is difficult to evaluate; I get the feeling it's going to be too powerful, though - you're outputting a lot of formulae by the mid levels and they're all pretty powerful.
Giving a class that already has so much going on a spellcasting subclass feels like a really bad idea.

Gaiean: I don't get a feel for what this class is supposed to do.

Geomancer: The Eldritch Knight as a class, which I guess I'm not opposed to, I just wish the base class did anything a fighter can't.
Quicksilver is... weird. Now we're a monk for a bit? Mercurial Stance is balanced fine, but it's a very odd ability in that I don't have to be using my reaction to attack something in order to get the free second attack. And if I don't expect to need my reaction, readying my action in order to use a reaction on it becomes a good thing to do in a weird metagame-y way. I'd change it to when you make an attack of opportunity.
This is however, the only class to use the periodic elements, and for that I salute you.

Earthbinder: This class is deeply, deeply strange, which I like. I don't have the first idea of how to actually assess it, though. The ability to literally conjure wealth out of the air could be problematic, and variable spell slots is going to be a thing players hate, regardless of the mechanical implications.

Firestorm Avatar: Overall a very nice class. Maybe with a little much stacked on when you get hit, with two different features able to be triggered by level two.
Control Elements has a _lot_ of options, that feel like they could be cut down, simplified or consolidated in some way.
The subclasses are fine, but feel very thematically weird to me. I am an avatar of fire and air, but also plants or the ocean? Earth works, and thus is probably the only one I'd play.
Portentious Awareness is the kind of feature that makes GMs want to kill you.

Shaman: The production values on this are super high, and it looks quite well balanced, I just wonder what niche it fills that the druid doesn't.

Planar Warrior: This is a really slick class, and looks like it'd play pretty well.
Echoing Strike is far, far too powerful when applied to spells - it has a good chance of letting you duplicate spell slots used for attack spells, and if you pick up a damaging cantrip you can output two attacks most turns. I'd tone it down to weapon attacks only.
The class has a weird thing of tacking non-optional indiscriminate offense onto utility powers (Burning Ward stops you from being able to defend while near your allies, Thunderous Jaunt hurts your allies when you teleport away from them) - some form of optionality on these abilities would help a lot.

Votes
1st: Firestorm Avatar
2nd: Planar Warrior
3rd: Shaman

"Does not meet expectations" sounds exciting, I'd vote for that

[Vogie]

1st: Firestorm Avatar. Although I'm not thrilled about the name, the avatar of destruction is just a great class. Love the Sculpt Destruction feature, and how the class summarizes and brings together a bunch of weather-esque effects under single banners. Great Job.
2nd: Shaman. I'm a fan of conversions, and this is a good one. Still dislike the name "lesser lightning bolt", though.
3rd: Earthbinder. The class isn't perfect, and could probably use a good editor, but the concept and execution is very satisfying. The document could be a bit more eloquent, but it gets the job done.

Honorable mention: I really wanted to like Kineticist... The Pathfinder version of it was never satisfying, either. I don't know what it is about that name...

I'm surprised that there weren't any elemental minion-mancers. A lot of these classes gave an elemental minion, but only for small periods of time, and per long rest.

I'll go for Does Not Meet Expectations

[Mourne]

1st -Alchemist
I’m going to admit I had somewhat of a bias here which ultimately helped decide my top vote (I had Shaman and Alchemist about equal). There have been numerous attempts at making an alchemist – I have one myself – but MoleMage’s version was the first where I’ve seen something new. The catalyst mechanism was *damn* clever… a completely different take on the fairly standard PFRPG Alchemist baseline. I’ve come to view it as metamagic for alchemy. I realize there’s some complexity here which some view as a detriment when designing for 5E but I feel that most have enough of a background with earlier versions and PFRPG that this isn’t an issue.

I’m really going to have to think long and hard whether I steal this class for my own campaign or continue on the road to building my own version. Great job!!!

2nd -Shaman
This was probably the most polished and ready-for-the table class. Everything was just smooth and well thought-out. As a bonus (for me), the class didn’t really reek of MMO (WoW in this case?). Not that I’d know as I played the superior EQ2. ; ) Everything flows well and the totem mechanism was interesting – with a little more flavor/fluff, it would grab the imagination even more.

3rd - Planar Warrior
This was another good deviation from the standard take on the theme and I like that it was geared towards defensive (whereas most skew towards offensive or utility). After various feedback, the funeral iteration was fairly interesting.

This was a tossup with Firestorm Avatar for third place for me.

------

Firestorm Avatar
A lot going on with this class but certainly locked-in for the elemental theme. I did like the overall feel but from a playability perspective there was just a ton of drain on their action economy through the various features (Sculpt Destruction, Control Elements, Weaponized Weather). I think with some tuning, this could be a great class as the base concept and features are great.

Kinecticist
Came in a little late (and maybe suffered for it). It was just really complex, introducing quite a few mechanics for powering their features. The core class didn’t feel tied to the theme very deeply and could just as easily be themed to anything by changing the specializations.

My apologies to both the Gaian and Geomancer – I had done a written review for both classes that I never posted.

Gaian
On point theme-wise but suffered from some clarity in regards to the abilities (in my mind at least). I did really like some of the features (Elemental Stride was really cool and has a lot of potential -- adding a rider to dash is just brilliant) but there were some cross-feature balance issues. Much like my own class, it could have used some fluff to really sell the theme and features.

Geomancer
I did like that the Geomancer went a different (non-traditional) route with the theme. Kudos. Overall, my feeling was that the core class essentially came across as a Fighter (but better) and the archetype only piled on top of this.

THEME: Does not meet expectations

[MoleMage]

1st: The Shaman Probably a bit of nostalgia bias here but I thought this was a really polished translation of the shaman class; certainly it was moreso than most versions of it I had previously seen.

2nd: The Planar Warrior I just really like the flavor, even if the mechanics are a little wonky sometimes, and I approve of the inclusion of Feywild and Shadowfell as planes.

3rd: The Geomancer The name doesn't line up with the theme to me but it is otherwise internally consistent, and it's the only other class that used periodic elements.

For theme I pick "Doesn't meet expectations".