Sin-Eater (Base Class Idea)

[Lazy Zomb]

Okay, sin-eaters: wikipedia's take

The idea has to take a slightly new form, of course. That this PC could voluntarily accept a supernatural or spell like disability, possibly requiring it to be evil, such as ability drain, negative levels, ect. from another character. That alone might make it a decent fifth wheel, as the barbarian who was just strength drained now has an easy way to get rid of that.

But then, taking all these penalties for the team isn't exactly gonna be fun for the player, so some benefit would be gotten from this. I'm no expert at D&D, I know the rules, but can hardly assume to know how to balance things, so I leave this class pretty open for ideas.

20 LEVEL SPELLCASTING BASE CLASS
{table=head]Level|Base Attack<br>Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|0lvl|1st|2nd|3rd|4th|5th|6th|7th|8th|9th

1st|

+0

|

+2

|

+0

|

+0

|Sin-Eating|-|-

2nd|

+1

|

+3

|

+0

|

+0

|Class Ability|-|-|-

3rd|

+2

|

+3

|

+1

|

+1

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-

4th|

+3

|

+4

|

+1

|

+1

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-

5th|

+3

|

+4

|

+1

|

+1

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-

6th|

+4

|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

7th|

+5

|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

8th|

+6

|

+6

|

+2

|

+2

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

9th|

+6/1

|

+6

|

+3

|

+3

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

10th|

+7/2

|

+7

|

+3

|

+3

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

11th|

+8/3

|

+7

|

+3

|

+3

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

12th|

+9/4

|

+8

|

+4

|

+4

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

13th|

+9/4

|

+8

|

+4

|

+4

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

14th|

+10/5

|

+9

|

+4

|

+4

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

15th|

+11/6/1

|

+9

|

+5

|

+5

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

16th|

+12/7/2

|

+10

|

+5

|

+5

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

17th|

+12/7/2

|

+10

|

+5

|

+5

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

18th|

+13/8/3

|

+11

|

+6

|

+6

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

19th|

+14/9/4

|

+11

|

+6

|

+6

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-

20th|

+15/10/5

|

+12

|

+6

|

+6

|Class Ability|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-|-[/table]


As of right now I have...

Alignment: Non-Evil
BAB: Same as Rogue
Saves: Good Fort?, Bad Reflex?, Will?

Class ability to willingly put a debilitationg effect currently on another party member, onto themselves for an undecided bonus.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Maybe you could turn it into benefits?

Like, after ten minutes, that -4 to Strength that was on the Barbarian goes away, and you get a +4 bonus?

Since they're "sin"-eaters, maybe you should require them to be good, and give them some redemption-themed abilities?

[Lazy Zomb]

@Mr. Bookworm: So what you propose is that, Barbarian gets sapped for 4 strength. Sin Eater uses his ability to take that strength drain unto himself. Indeterminate time later, sin-eater gets a bonus for another indeterminate time. The problem being that that pretty much puts him out for one battle and then might get him back in better than before in another battle. But it was something along those lines I was thinking...

Good requirement sounds good, but then, I'm not sure they were necessarily good, then that they were poor. Not evil, however, is probably something to put there.

Thank you for the suggestions^^

[Mr.Bookworm]

@Mr. Bookworm: So what you propose is that, Barbarian gets sapped for 4 strength. Sin Eater uses his ability to take that strength drain unto himself. Indeterminate time later, sin-eater gets a bonus for another indeterminate time. The problem being that that pretty much puts him out for one battle and then might get him back in better than before in another battle. But it was something along those lines I was thinking...

Good requirement sounds good, but then, I'm not sure they were necessarily good, then that they were poor. Not evil, however, is probably something to put there.

Thank you for the suggestions^^

Yeah.

Hm...

Maybe you could give them a class ability that let's them surpress said penalties and get the boost earlier, but at some kind of cost? Like lengthening the penalty when it becomes unsurpressed?

Flavorwise: Maybe you could give them sort of a quasi-priest flavor? As in, the preside over the dead and dying, and absolve them of there sins?

[Lazy Zomb]

Fluffwise... Well, yeah, fluffwise they would do outside of adventuring exactly what they did in the real world - for a small price, or nothing, they would take one's sins away. Might be entirely superstition in a D&D setting, or a literal need in some homebrew world.

That's also possible... What we need is a classification system for what benefits you'd get for whatever drawbacks you took. It could be stat increases, it could be additional abilities, it could be the use of spells even.

Hey! There we go... The sin-eater would take the penalty, stat drain, level drain, paralyzing, and it would earn him a certain amount of points, based upon the effect, or the dc tat it had, or whatever. These would be used like non-replenishable PP of the psionics, after so many "sins" eaten, he could release them by spending points from a select list of spells...

Well, at least that's one way. Heh, entirely different from what I was thinking only two posts up.

[Mr.Bookworm]

Hm. That sounds good.

So... maybe something like this?

He eats the sin of a Barbarian, taking a -4 hit to Strength. He then gains 12 SP (Sin Points, or whatever you end up calling them, assuming a point of ability drain/damage is 3 SP). He spends 3 SP 4 times to gain Magic Missle as spell-like ability 4 times.

Something like that?

EDIT: Maybe you could give them there own exclusive list of powers, and abilities. Say, pay three points to get a +1 bonus to Strength, or pay twenty points to gain the use of a true ressurection spell?

Also, it sounds flavor-wise like they should have partial divine casting ability.

[Lazy Zomb]

Yeah, definately sounds good. Tweaks for balance and a spell list needs to be made then. I suppose I'll make up a table then.

*goes to look for how to do that*

[Baron Corm]

I would have the sin-eater take the negative effect until its normal duration would be over, otherwise you have a one level dip to make your entire party immune to bad effects. Also state that if the sin-eater is immune to the effect he eats, he doesn't gain any sin points. As for what sin points do, how about making the sin-eater a divine caster with a spell list similar to a cleric (he is a righteous bastion of good or whatever), and he can add sin points to "augment" his spells, similar to how psionics do (increased DC or damage or duration or w/e is appropriate). He would gain spells per day normally though, he just spends points to augment. He probably needs some class features other than augmenting, too.

To make tables I use this: http://www.pifro.com/dnd/

[Lazy Zomb]

@FP22: Thank you for the suggestions. It was never my intention to get rid of the effects entirely - sin eaters end with the sins on their soul. I'm not familiar with psionics, but that sounds reasonable. I shall implement changes when I return, for now, I am off.

[Mewtarthio]

The Wikipedia link's not working. You've got "http://" typed out twice.

[Sightless]

You guys are thinking a bit high... if this is to be a base class it needs to be effective in the lower levels too.... I was thinking of some form of damage eating, where the Sin Eater could perform an effective lay on hands, except he takes nonlethal, or reduced damage. This ability could be capped out per day like the paladins lay on hands ability is, but this way the sin eater could take a partial role as cleric..

Perhaps it would also be nice to give this class a very limited spell list of spells usually associated with evil... heavy in the necromancy school, and maybe a delayed set of the Inflict wounds series.

I think with a little divine spell casting ability and a little healing, it wouldn't be to hard to balance an abstract class like this with the rest of the system.

Edit: If I didn't explain why the class should have evil spells... it would mix in well with the whole redemption fluff, or just the darker side of his own brand of purification/healing.

This class would also place well into a campaign world that uses Taint from Unearthed Arcana... The sin eater could absorb and process some of the taint from his allies.