Some Personal Classes made for 3.75 ed

[IGTN]

Roy, we're actually trying to get him to turn this project into something good, if you've been reading the thread. It's already been improved a bit.

Shut the fuck up.

Eagle: If that's the Crab Battle outline for level 1 and it improves from there, I think you should probably put in "you do not gain extra attacks from any source except BAB, such as two-weapon fighting or Haste" when you use Crab Battle. That way it does exactly what you expect it to, instead of allowing you to pile on the extra attacks.

[Username17]

we're actually trying to get him to turn this project into something good

What's the fucking point?

He's already essentially called out people such as myself as "not helping" but more importantly he's already said that he has no interest of making the character ever be competitive against an actual character of its level. You are wasting your time.

Mguy may make concessions and make a class that is "less shitty" but he's still going to be an asshole about it and it's still going to be shitty. Honestly, if he makes a Barbarian instead of a Monk are you going to claim that you accomplished anything?

-Username17

[Roy]

we're actually trying to get him to turn this project into something good

What's the fucking point?

He's already essentially called out people such as myself as "not helping" but more importantly he's already said that he has no interest of making the character ever be competitive against an actual character of its level. You are wasting your time.

Mguy may make concessions and make a class that is "less shitty" but he's still going to be an asshole about it and it's still going to be shitty. Honestly, if he makes a Barbarian instead of a Monk are you going to claim that you accomplished anything?

-Username17

Thank you. So that's why I'm attacking him. Since asking him to stop wasting everyone's time isn't working, shock factoring him into it is the next option, followed by ignore.

So the trolltards can BAW and whine for me to shut the fuck up, but the worst thing that can be honestly said about me is that my net contribution to this project is more positive than the original poster's.

Ubernoob, JE, people like that? They aren't fucking exaggerating one iota. 40% of all combats are higher level than you, so you can seriously fucking expect 1 or 2 such battles EVERY SINGLE DAY. If you can't do that, stay at home. So far he hasn't even worked out the 50% of routine battles yet, and I'd be surprised if he can handle the 10% of easy.

When your shit can't do anyfuckingthing, no one fucking cares. Improvements or not, he is not playing the Same Game... and the biggest thing holding him back is Pathfinder.

My not liking it isn't even a fucking factor. It's a proven fact that system is designed by people who do not even grasp the concept of level appropriateness aside from perhaps actively preventing it whenever possible. When I say that 'everything based on it is made of Fail', that's not just a meme, that is a summarization. Anything using non level appropriateness as a base will not be level appropriate.

So when I say 'Mguy/Elennsar/whatever your name is, if you want to actually do this you need to start over from scratch and base it on 3.5' there is absofuckinglutely nothing personal about it. That is simply me telling him what he needs to do so he can even begin doing what he wants.

To all you fuckers whining and flailing over that, fuck you for making the Den an objectively worse place.

[MGuy]

we're actually trying to get him to turn this project into something good

What's the fucking point?

He's already essentially called out people such as myself as "not helping" but more importantly he's already said that he has no interest of making the character ever be competitive against an actual character of its level. You are wasting your time.

Mguy may make concessions and make a class that is "less shitty" but he's still going to be an asshole about it and it's still going to be shitty. Honestly, if he makes a Barbarian instead of a Monk are you going to claim that you accomplished anything?

-Username17

Because they want to help? And yes you didn't/and still aren't a help Frank besides the stuff you've posted in the Tomes.

What I meant by what I said earlier was I didn't want to keep on comparing my Noble and its abilities to Beguilers. Mostly because the comparisons just involved people saying "well they can sling around this all day with magic so why give it that ability?". And while I can understand why that might be a problem now that its been explained; people who choose to not explain such allegations and who choose to not give me an alternative sure as hell don't help any of the classes to improve at all. Which is why when ever it happened I said "Explain Please".

I'd really love to have some REAL input by you Frank. However, if you don't want to that's fine. It would stand to reason that you wouldn't have any input seeing as though you have your own system/house rules set up in such detail. I'm not looking for all of that though. I mean hell, I don't really care about the flaws inherent the 3.5 system. I've managed to DM just fine with them as written in the PHB. Anything that didn't go well I used rule 0 to make it fit. For me DnD is about fun and flavor not mechanics. If any of that shit mattered much to me I wouldn't have played in this system for so long. I just wish that if that is the case you and people like the now ignored Roy would just leave the thread alone.

What I'm looking out of this class here is really just something functional. I don't need perfect cause I don't care if anyone else uses it or not. I need something that's fun and flavorful. Something that leaves just enough challenge to make the game interesting. I mean I honestly don't find it at all strange or offensive/game breaking to let casters be inherently better at dealing with life than martial classes. In fantasy books the big bad caster is routinely thwarted by brave adventures usually at least one of which actually uses magic to give the other guys the chance they need to stab the guy in the face. Enough about all that though. If you don't have any relevant ideas, don't like the system, don't like what I'm doing here, don't like me that's fine, don't post here then. This thread is for people who WANT to lend a hand.

[MGuy]

we're actually trying to get him to turn this project into something good

What's the fucking point?

He's already essentially called out people such as myself as "not helping" but more importantly he's already said that he has no interest of making the character ever be competitive against an actual character of its level. You are wasting your time.

Mguy may make concessions and make a class that is "less shitty" but he's still going to be an asshole about it and it's still going to be shitty. Honestly, if he makes a Barbarian instead of a Monk are you going to claim that you accomplished anything?

-Username17

Thank you. So that's why I'm attacking him. Since asking him to stop wasting everyone's time isn't working, shock factoring him into it is the next option, followed by ignore.

So the trolltards can BAW and whine for me to shut the fuck up, but the worst thing that can be honestly said about me is that my net contribution to this project is more positive than the original poster's.

Ubernoob, JE, people like that? They aren't fucking exaggerating one iota. 40% of all combats are higher level than you, so you can seriously fucking expect 1 or 2 such battles EVERY SINGLE DAY. If you can't do that, stay at home. So far he hasn't even worked out the 50% of routine battles yet, and I'd be surprised if he can handle the 10% of easy.

When your shit can't do anyfuckingthing, no one fucking cares. Improvements or not, he is not playing the Same Game... and the biggest thing holding him back is Pathfinder.

My not liking it isn't even a fucking factor. It's a proven fact that system is designed by people who do not even grasp the concept of level appropriateness aside from perhaps actively preventing it whenever possible. When I say that 'everything based on it is made of Fail', that's not just a meme, that is a summarization. Anything using non level appropriateness as a base will not be level appropriate.

So when I say 'Mguy/Elennsar/whatever your name is, if you want to actually do this you need to start over from scratch and base it on 3.5' there is absofuckinglutely nothing personal about it. That is simply me telling him what he needs to do so he can even begin doing what he wants.

To all you fuckers whining and flailing over that, fuck you for making the Den an objectively worse place.

Thank you for explaining yourself. It would have been much easier to stomach your harsh words earlier had you said this in the beginning. Hopping in, saying "this shit sux all around", then moving on didn't help anything. I never said/thought your attacks were personal. However the way you commented didn't help me LIKE your comments either (especially with you continuing to call me Elensarr, who ever the hell that is) but I try to refrain from looking too deeply into extra meanings behind words when reading something on the internet. Most times you can't tell the intonation of someones words just by reading them off a page and those who try to guess at it end up wrong more times than not. So I don't really care how you say what you have to say as long as it helps.

As for how you feel about pathfinder, I look at it essentially the way I look at 3.0/3.5 its not gonna be perfect. But I'm not gonna start a comment spree over the merits of the system I choose to play. When Pathfinder's book comes out I'll be the final judge over what I do and don't use (its not like I'm gonna throw away my collection of 3.5 books) So in this thread, that is just about making this class better, attacking the system isn't going to help it. You not liking the system does mean that you're unwilling to test it under the conditions that that system would put the class under, which I think counts as a factor. If I WANT to play in that system how does telling me the system is stupid/don't use it going to help me achieve that goal? Your comments take me back to when I started using the Eberron Campaign setting and when I brought it up on a board I got hit with similar comments.

I've already conceded to the earlier arguments about the class not being able to hold its own at its level so you repeating things that have already been taken into account isn't helping either. I have said at those times the classes aren't ready. Making these classes able to take on level appropriate things is a goal. However I don't want to lose my original concept either. So I won't.

-Extra Note: People who bash other people's systems/tastes/etc and try to pick fights are what make boards an objectively worse place.

[Username17]

I'd really love to have some REAL input by you Frank.

You got real input. Real, insightful consideration of how your classes did and should interact with the game world that they are supposed to be part of. You chose to be a douche about it instead of working from that.

So that's the end of it. You're an asshole, and your work sucks. You made the choice to not take steps towards making your work not suck and you were a jerk about it. So now I can't see any reason to provide you any assistance on your project.

If you want to start over and not be a cock and maybe get people to really start from the ground up in game design theory, you're going to have to do that yourself. The mountain will not come to you. If you throw a temper tantrum every time people tell you what parts of bad design work you're going to have to scrap, no one is going to help you.

What I'm looking out of this class here is really just something functional.

This is obviously a lie. If you wanted to make something functional, you wouldn't have been an asshole when people told you how things you made weren't functional.

-Username17

[Roy]

Thank you for explaining yourself. It would have been much easier to stomach your harsh words earlier had you said this in the beginning. Hopping in, saying "this shit sux all around", then moving on didn't help anything. I never said/thought your attacks were personal. However the way you commented didn't help me LIKE your comments either (especially with you continuing to call me Elensarr, who ever the hell that is) but I try to refrain from looking too deeply into extra meanings behind words when reading something on the internet. Most times you can't tell the intonation of someones words just by reading them off a page and those who try to guess at it end up wrong more times than not. So I don't really care how you say what you have to say as long as it helps.

Here at the Den, we take the basics for granted and figure you either already know that, or could easily find it.

Elennsar is a fucker who harassed our boards for a while. His main trademark was responding to feedback he doesn't like in a manner very similar to what you were doing. He also had similar disconnects.

As for how you feel about pathfinder, I look at it essentially the way I look at 3.0/3.5 its not gonna be perfect. But I'm not gonna start a comment spree over the merits of the system I choose to play. When Pathfinder's book comes out I'll be the final judge over what I do and don't use (its not like I'm gonna throw away my collection of 3.5 books) So in this thread, that is just about making this class better, attacking the system isn't going to help it. You not liking the system does mean that you're unwilling to test it under the conditions that that system would put the class under, which I think counts as a factor. If I WANT to play in that system how does telling me the system is stupid/don't use it going to help me achieve that goal? Your comments take me back to when I started using the Eberron Campaign setting and when I brought it up on a board I got hit with similar comments.

Eberron doesn't change anything major about the rules. It adds a new class, a new race or two, and some spike defenses in the form of action points.

Pathfinder however downgrades the rules hard. Relevant to you, beatsticks become weaker and casters become stronger. So that means your Samurai and your so called caster killer are objectively worse than I am saying they are if you're right. So that doesn't help you one iota. If you're right, the problem is WORSE. Which is one more reason why you should burn your PF books. Or at least not use them.

[IGTN]

MGuy: Yeah, seriously. I'm on the list of people who helped, but you're ignoring everything Frank says, even though we've been saying the exact same thing.

Admittedly, now that you've torn it apart and started rebuilding it I've become less pessimistic and Frank hasn't, but that doesn't mean that the things he said before giving up aren't right, or that he isn't actually justified in his belief that you aren't actually asking for help in good faith.

But, while you're tearing it apart and building it back up, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you really genuinely want to make a good class.

Go check your ego and re-read everything Frank said right up until giving up on you. While you read it, keep in mind that he actually does know his stuff, and that there is actual advice in there, just completely unsugarcoated advice you didn't want to hear, because that's how the Den does things. Work from there, and keep tearing everything apart and re-writing it until its good enough to just tweak.

---

Remember, of the 11 classes in the Player's Handbook, the Tome project has torn apart and rewritten, or has plans to, every class except the Rogue and Wizard, and of those, the Cleric and Druid are the only ones being rewritten for flavor, the Rogue has some rewrite classes that don't replace the original in the Dungeonomicon (and doesn't play like WotC envisioned the Rogue as), and IIRC Frank has in the past recommended substituting the specialist classes (Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Elementalist, Summoner, Warmage, and so on) instead of playing a Wizard.

Seriously. Out of 11 classes, only one of them is good enough to get the Den to say "we don't need to get rid of this." Two of the ones we're getting rid of have bad flavor, and the last one has difficult mechanics.

Actually, I don't remember if we're rewriting the Sorcerer or just junking it. Either way, the core sorcerer is out.

Most people practice class design around Wizards classes, and end up with stuff at the same level of quality. That is, more than half will be underpowered, half of what's balanced will need a redesign to make it do what it's supposed to do, and another quarter will be mechanically clunky. More, since people like to make combat classes more than casters. Don't take it personally that your design is crap, and don't try to throw insults or accuse people of having no ideas without checking your ego to read what they say.

[CatharzGodfoot]

Elennsar, in the end, was interested in working on things that didn't hold any interest for other Den members.

I've already conceded to the earlier arguments about the class not being able to hold its own at its level so you repeating things that have already been taken into account isn't helping either. I have said at those times the classes aren't ready. Making these classes able to take on level appropriate things is a goal. However I don't want to lose my original concept either. So I won't.

Why don't you outline what your original concepts are, without numbers. I can't promise that you'll get any helpful feedback (apparently everyone on this board has become incredibly bitter), but at least you'll have a chance. Does the noble adventure? Why is an adventuring noble a member of the "noble" class rather than a fighter or wizard who happens to be from a noble family? Can people who aren't "nobles" take the class? Right now the noble looks a bit like a non-spellcasting version of the Master of Snake Mountain, which is probably a good thing.

Things like Ki Pool just tend to piss people here off, because you've got to keep track of a big daily pool to get a crappy +2 to AC (or attacks, which is better but still a pain). Compare the the equivalent Kiai! ability of the Tome samurai, which is about the same but only powers one thing (simpler) and generates critical hits (better).

---

the Cleric and Druid are the only ones being rewritten for flavor...
Actually, I don't remember if we're rewriting the Sorcerer or just junking it. Either way, the core sorcerer is out.

Seriously? I thought that the sorcerer, cleric, and druid were fine. With the proposed skill changes, the rogue will have nothing to its credit but trap finding (which the beguiler and cleric get) and the unrestricted bonus feat, which is really more of an easter egg than a class feature.

[MGuy]

Here at the Den, we take the basics for granted and figure you either already know that, or could easily find it.

Elennsar is a fucker who harassed our boards for a while. His main trademark was responding to feedback he doesn't like in a manner very similar to what you were doing. He also had similar disconnects.

Then let me make an introduction for myself. I am a 11-12 year, limited experience DM. I started D&D on a whim that just so happened to be when 3.0 was turning into 3.5. I started DMing in a primarily black neighborhood (yes I am black) with a small group of friends who I had convinced to give it a shot. So for 8 years I DMed with no outside input. I never went online for anything and modded the rules to fit my gaming style and my player's style. So 'm a very home brew person. this changed when I moved away from there and got some experience at actually playing the game.My first DM was a munchkin and made encounters that killed the party. I made it a point to fight against the norms and ended up dying a lot because of my hatred of metagaming. That started about 3 years ago. Only in the last year (because I don't have a regular gaing group after having moved around so much) have I even come online to learn about anything. All these basic things never came up when I gamed and so I had no reason (and arguably still) to ever pick up on them. I'm not a calculating man. I figure things out only after I understand them. If I don't understand how something works then I ask other people to explain it to me. Which is the reason behind the "Explain Please" statements and my insistence that people explain what they say. And as I said before I respond to these comments because I want people to understand my thinking. I am not doing it with an attitude ... mostly and I honestly don't want it to sound that way. When I ask questions like "Why am I fighting this alone?!" I am asking it sincerely.

Eberron doesn't change anything major about the rules. It adds a new class, a new race or two, and some spike defenses in the form of action points.

Pathfinder however downgrades the rules hard. Relevant to you, beatsticks become weaker and casters become stronger. So that means your Samurai and your so called caster killer are objectively worse than I am saying they are if you're right. So that doesn't help you one iota. If you're right, the problem is WORSE. Which is one more reason why you should burn your PF books. Or at least not use them.

I don't have any PF books (the core book doesn't come out until Aug 13th). I only have the free beta which I stopped looking at after I had heard there were going to major changes from the content in it. I had heard through their boards that casters were nerfed (death spells reduced in effectiveness, More saves allowed on spells that fuck you up hard) and that all other classes got an upgrade (more abilities/class options). As I said before I did look around this board before, and the few times I did searches on pathfinder stuff your name has come up. So I've seen some of the stuff you have said, and to be honest it does make me think (I think the last one I went through had something to do with the traps). However,there doesn't seem to be any major deal breakers within it that weren't already in 3.5. To settle my curiosity and to see all of your points on the subject matter I'll start a thread that asks about the major flaws with Pathfinder. Relative to the martial classes in 3.5 the upgrades do seem better. Might it be good to mix and match then? let the casters stay the same and bring in the other classes from PF?

[MGuy]

I'd really love to have some REAL input by you Frank.

You got real input. Real, insightful consideration of how your classes did and should interact with the game world that they are supposed to be part of. You chose to be a douche about it instead of working from that.

So that's the end of it. You're an asshole, and your work sucks. You made the choice to not take steps towards making your work not suck and you were a jerk about it. So now I can't see any reason to provide you any assistance on your project.

If you want to start over and not be a cock and maybe get people to really start from the ground up in game design theory, you're going to have to do that yourself. The mountain will not come to you. If you throw a temper tantrum every time people tell you what parts of bad design work you're going to have to scrap, no one is going to help you.

What I'm looking out of this class here is really just something functional.

This is obviously a lie. If you wanted to make something functional, you wouldn't have been an asshole when people told you how things you made weren't functional.

-Username17

You didn't give me any real input. You said:

"You have got to be kidding. The Samurai is just fucking Fighter. Fighters don't get nice things, and your Samurai doesn't get nice things. The amount of effort you put into it is astounding considering how incredibly shitty it is."

What i got out of it: "This is a fighter and stinks like one too". No exposition on what the hell that meant.

Then:
"Stop. Just stop altogether. If you make player spend two levels to get Improved Buckler Defense and an extra +2 on an attack roll once a day you have failed at life. You entire methodology is crap and you need to stop doing it. You obviously have the patience to write full classes and the enthusiasm to write and rewrite them until they are "right" but as long as you keep thinking that two levels to get a bonus feat and +1 to a "ki pool" is OK as a life choice your results are never going to be good."

What I got out of it: "You're spending a lot of time doing absolutely nothing. Your class as is sux so just delete it". Which of course it isn't battle ready (it being under construction and everything) I know that. You retelling me that didn't/doesn't help move things along.

Then:
"Seriously. Take a step back. Decide how you want the Samuai to fight enemies. Then look at what your opponents are. Then fit some abilities to that, and run some playtests. Here are some actual challenges at EL 5 and 15. Your character should win roughly half of these challenges, and he just isn't going to do that getting Improved Toughness at level 4"

What I got out of it: "Here are some level appropriate challenges. If your fighter can't make it in these arenas then it isn't good enough." This was probably the best thing you've said this entire time. And I actually took it seriously and gave it some thought. I even gave a rebuttal for these challenges and told you honestly what I thought about them. Apparently you didn't like my thoughts and you didn't even try to clear up any issues I presented. Other users here decided to do it.

Finally you said:
"The reason that I am unable to give you suggestions on tweaking this Samurai class is because it is garbage. Thee are no tweaks possible, because in all twenty levels it never gets a class feature that would be out of place at level 1. You need to define a role for it at high level and then actually write something that would allow it to fill that role".

What I got out of it: "I'm going to give up on trying to help you out with this class. It is all garbage because It can't meet the challenges as is and doesn't have a defined role" Which is all true because apparently you're not gonna try to improve it (or even take a stab at the other two classes here).

So I admit. You gave input by throwing the EL challenges at me but you basically made it a non factor in your post by basically telling me you already gave up on giving me any further instructions.

Lastly, if I didn't want anything functional I would've already taken the classes down printed them off and went on my merry way. What you're not understanding is that this is the ground floor for me. I came to this place with these classes not 2 days after I decided to even make an attempt at making a class or two and I have no prior experience in design. I don't have a particular method I'm in love with. I have goals and ideas I want to flesh out. If I can't meet those goals or flesh out the ideas I have I won't do it at all there'd be no point.

If you don't want to help me fine. Chiming in to call me an asshole regularly however will be considered a personal attack and so I will ask you to kindly fuck off if that's the way you feel. And if you're going to throw a temper tantrum and resort to name calling despite someone giving your "insightful advice" some thought and treating you with respect then I do not want your help. I don't expect you "O'mountain" to move at all but I would prefer that you stay serenely in the background so I don't have to hear your rumbling. In other words: You've established that you don't like what I'm doing, my way of doing it, or me, and not only that you've announced that you've no intention of helping me so stop posting in this thread already.

[Ice9]

I don't think it's unreasonable to ask for clarification when people post comments saying basically "the problem is that it fails completely, the solution is to change everything". For one thing, do you really think anyone's going to read something like that and immediately say "I bow before your criticism I don't even understand - you are obviously correct about everything"? Whether or not it's correct. And even if he did, without understanding in what specific ways it fails, the chance of improving it by rewriting it is a crapshoot. A lot of things that are taken for granted on the Den (same game test, for instance) are little-known outside it.

I mean, if I was to say "OO tree is fail for that type of project, you need components instead" - that doesn't help you unless you know what I mean, and probably won't convince anyone unless they know enough not to have made the mistake in the first place.

[IGTN]

Seriously? I thought that the sorcerer, cleric, and druid were fine. With the proposed skill changes, the rogue will have nothing to its credit but trap finding (which the beguiler and cleric get) and the unrestricted bonus feat, which is really more of an easter egg than a class feature.

On rereading the put up or shut up thread:
Sorcerer isn't mentioned. It might be OK, like the rogue, but I remember us saying that the Wizard is fine and the Sorcerer is less powerful.

Of course, the rewrite could just be a change to its spell progression tables.

The Rogue has sneak attack and ridiculous amounts of skill points. It's fine because it can carry acid flasks, wands, scrolls, and a ring of blinking.

A Cleric rewrite was slated for Virtue, and a Druid rewrite for Trees, since the Cleric class is too narrow (a Catholic Warrior Bishop from 16th century France), and the Druid doesn't even know what it does.

MGuy:
Welcome aboard.

e: Ice9: That's a good point. I understood everything Frank said perfectly clearly, and in my eyes I was just repeating it a lot of the time, but the difference in wording may have made it clearer. That'd be strange, though, since normally Frank writes clearly and I write obtusely.

[MGuy]

MGuy: Yeah, seriously. I'm on the list of people who helped, but you're ignoring everything Frank says, even though we've been saying the exact same thing.

Admittedly, now that you've torn it apart and started rebuilding it I've become less pessimistic and Frank hasn't, but that doesn't mean that the things he said before giving up aren't right, or that he isn't actually justified in his belief that you aren't actually asking for help in good faith.

But, while you're tearing it apart and building it back up, I'll give you the benefit of the doubt that you really genuinely want to make a good class.

Go check your ego and re-read everything Frank said right up until giving up on you. While you read it, keep in mind that he actually does know his stuff, and that there is actual advice in there, just completely unsugarcoated advice you didn't want to hear, because that's how the Den does things. Work from there, and keep tearing everything apart and re-writing it until its good enough to just tweak.

---

Remember, of the 11 classes in the Player's Handbook, the Tome project has torn apart and rewritten, or has plans to, every class except the Rogue and Wizard, and of those, the Cleric and Druid are the only ones being rewritten for flavor, the Rogue has some rewrite classes that don't replace the original in the Dungeonomicon (and doesn't play like WotC envisioned the Rogue as), and IIRC Frank has in the past recommended substituting the specialist classes (Beguiler, Dread Necromancer, Elementalist, Summoner, Warmage, and so on) instead of playing a Wizard.

Seriously. Out of 11 classes, only one of them is good enough to get the Den to say "we don't need to get rid of this." Two of the ones we're getting rid of have bad flavor, and the last one has difficult mechanics.

Actually, I don't remember if we're rewriting the Sorcerer or just junking it. Either way, the core sorcerer is out.

Most people practice class design around Wizards classes, and end up with stuff at the same level of quality. That is, more than half will be underpowered, half of what's balanced will need a redesign to make it do what it's supposed to do, and another quarter will be mechanically clunky. More, since people like to make combat classes more than casters. Don't take it personally that your design is crap, and don't try to throw insults or accuse people of having no ideas without checking your ego to read what they say.

Ok I've just gone over what Frank said to me and what I got out of it. I'm not going to go back and say I'm sorry for what I thought at the time. (A man sticks with his words to the end! BEEFCAKE!) To say I am sorry about what I said would be lying. And Franks increasingly aggressive tone just ain't gonna make reconciliation a possibility. I adore some of his work. I respected his words (even if it may have not looked like it). I problem was I didn't understand what his words meant. Which why I said it didn't help any. i am not happy that he's taken the route he has but I'm not going to pander. I'll just keep working on the classes. I have my goals and ideas and anyone that wants to help. I'll try to make myself better understood in the future.

Thank for the exposition on the classes. I did not know that this board was so Tome oriented. Is there a thread I can look at to see why the rogue was the only one to survive? On that note what non core classes survived scrutiny?

Further am I right in assuming that abilities should emulate spells then? It would make sense... but then is it just spells out of the PHB or are spells and features presented in other books to be looked at as well? how does the board feel about Tome of Battle?

-Thank you for that Ice. And where is the "put up or shut up" thread?

[TavishArtair]

People's opinions of what "Tome" is vary. However, the first and foremost rule that people abide in supplemental game design, is to create something that someone actually wants to use. This means it has to compete, it has to stand out against the other options. In the PHB, the classes that are forerunners of the pack are wizard, rogue, cleric, and druid. With supplements, certain warrior-type builds become available, such as Fighter 20 (Spiked Chain only) or a charger build (with cavalier), but honestly those usually lack the versatility of the PHB set of four, and thus aren't very good.

Oh, and I guess maybe sorcerer too, but it's often overshadowed by the wizard.

"Tome" classes are built with meeting the standard set by the aforementioned four classes, because that way you can actually play them and not feel like you're shooting yourself in the foot. Thus, on this board any class that's worth playing is a "Tome" class. However, really, any good class design would fulfill that parameter.

[IGTN]

The "Put up or shut up" thread is Here. It's where we made the decision to finish the Tome series as a group, and lays out the plans for the rest of the Tomes.

Abilities don't need to emulate spells, they just need to be on the same level of power.

As for how classes do under scrutiny:

The Rogue is able to do real damage, by taking the Two-Weapon Fighting tree, Rapid Shot, and a Ring of Blinking, and using acid flasks. That covers bad BAB with touch attacks, allows her to make sneak attacks all the time (thrown weapons leave the blink field and re-materialize, so no miss chance), and so gets you huge amounts of damage. Then you cover your other weaknesses with Use Magic Device.

The Cleric, Druid, and Wizard have full casting.

The main warrior types (Barbarian, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger) can be shut down with a single spell at mid to high levels. As you level, you learn spells to do that without a save. The Bard can't do anything level-appropriate. The Monk has a whole bunch of counter-synergistic abilities, no way to make a level-appropriate nontrivial offense, and basically only excels at running away. The Sorcerer is a cheap knock-off of the Wizard, who on odd levels is a spell level behind, and on even levels is equivalent to a wizard who prepared the same spell in every max-level slot.

Non-core classes:
In the Completes, the new full casters (Favored Soul, Shugenja, Spirit Shaman and Wu Jen) aren't entirely crap, but have problems with their non-extensible spell lists for the ones with new spell lists (how many books can you name with Wu Jen spells in them?), and the Favored Soul is a cheap cleric knock-off, while the Spirit Shaman is a druid knock-off.

The other classes generally suck (Complete Warrior classes suck in general, Complete Adventurer classes are cheap knock-off rogues. The Spellthief might not suck because its mechanics are complicated enough to have exploitable bugs in them, but I don't really care. Complete Arcane's Warlock can't do anything level-appropriate and is basically a monk, and the Warmage is a blaster, the worst kind of mage. Complete Divine, if I remember right, is actually full of classes that aren't entirely awful, but you'll note that we're rewriting the Spirit Shaman and I don't even know what we're doing about the Favored Soul, probably folding it into Cleric. The Shugenja is an own-list caster, and so goes away.

Heroes of Horror, the Archivist is a DM-dependent class; you can get really nice things if the DM gives them to you. The Dread Necromancer is a good, if short, class.

Tome of Battle generally isn't much good. The Swordsage has issues hitting things, and the Crusader is pretty awful. A Warblade can, under certain circumstances, keep up. The entire system also has fundamental issues, such as the inexplicable choice to price all maneuvers of all levels equally and then not scale them.

[JonSetanta]

Now, that bit about replacing Wizard with more flavored and genre-focused specialist spellcasters.. that's a bit odd.
Frank had been lecturing about the balance of Tome compared to spells and top tier classes (namely Wizard, Cleric, Druid, etc), but to scrap that in favor of severely more limited options would then go against the entire balance objective of Tome.

You wouldn't end up with Tome at all by the time class revisions are complete, unless this is something more akin to "Tome 2.0".

I'm all in favor of a spell rewrite compendium though. Rather than dipping in to a cesspit of 3e PHB gamebreaker standards, we really should have a baseline of our own from the ground up.
This includes scaling summon spells, SoS Evocations, neutered SoDs, and so on.
Since spellcasters are the cutting edge (at least in 3e) it makes more sense to start with their revised basics, unless the standard of Spellcasters Are Best was simply a mistake entertained for too long.

[Avoraciopoctules]

MGuy:

What do you think about the concept of a "Noble" which, as it advances, becomes a member of more and more privileged aristocracies, allowing it to command larger amounts of resources and minions?

For instance, a 5th level noble would have 4 level 1 Tome Warriors following it around, have a free cohort, and be able to summon mephits to do it favors (presumably for being a midranking courtier for one or more genie sultans.). At 15th level, this noble would have 4 Bone Devils, the extra cohort would still be there, and the you'd be calling up level 13 True Fiends who retroactively owe you a favor or 3.

The class would be very much like the Summoner but without as much adaptability. There'd probably be some abilities to represent having contacts and allies pretty much everywhere as well. This would let the Noble take advantage of local laws and governments.

Gameplay focus would be on having your allies fight in your place, since the actual PC is very little good when it comes to more bellicose obstacles. You might even just say the PC is staying home and adventure entirely with minions. It would probably appeal to the players who want to play multiple party members.

[MGuy]

Elennsar, in the end, was interested in working on things that didn't hold any interest for other Den members.

I've already conceded to the earlier arguments about the class not being able to hold its own at its level so you repeating things that have already been taken into account isn't helping either. I have said at those times the classes aren't ready. Making these classes able to take on level appropriate things is a goal. However I don't want to lose my original concept either. So I won't.

Why don't you outline what your original concepts are, without numbers. I can't promise that you'll get any helpful feedback (apparently everyone on this board has become incredibly bitter), but at least you'll have a chance. Does the noble adventure? Why is an adventuring noble a member of the "noble" class rather than a fighter or wizard who happens to be from a noble family? Can people who aren't "nobles" take the class? Right now the noble looks a bit like a non-spellcasting version of the Master of Snake Mountain, which is probably a good thing.

Things like Ki Pool just tend to piss people here off, because you've got to keep track of a big daily pool to get a crappy +2 to AC (or attacks, which is better but still a pain). Compare the the equivalent Kiai! ability of the Tome samurai, which is about the same but only powers one thing (simpler) and generates critical hits (better).

---

the Cleric and Druid are the only ones being rewritten for flavor...
Actually, I don't remember if we're rewriting the Sorcerer or just junking it. Either way, the core sorcerer is out.

Seriously? I thought that the sorcerer, cleric, and druid were fine. With the proposed skill changes, the rogue will have nothing to its credit but trap finding (which the beguiler and cleric get) and the unrestricted bonus feat, which is really more of an easter egg than a class feature.

1) Ok I can do that.
AntiMage/Ishvalan Crusader: I like the character from full metal alchemist. And I want to get a class that you can actually take against wizards instead of having to make a class build for it. I want something that makes wizards afraid to walk around at night. Something that their contingency spells just can't handle. I love wizards (summoning) but I want to have something that seals them and their golem's doom.

Noble: When I was going through Dragonlance books and I saw both this and the Master classes. Out of the books neither class is even as good as a fighter. It was later that when I was playing Star Wars Saga that I played a noble class( I didn't want to be a cliche jedi and I have a love for Roleplay heavy characters) and when I was rummaging through OA books that I found the Courtier that has brought me to making a class around it. I want pretty much what you see in the different talent trees. I want a person who brings men to the field and uses them effectively, Someone who can impose their will on others, or someone who simply makes other people better (without spells). So really I want a bad ass support character. I'm willing to lose the idea of the followers but I definitely want to keep the cohort and have abilities relating to it. Though like the samurai class I'll probably break down the Talent trees and just go with two different Noble builds.

Samurai: I like eastern culture. It doesn't help that I'm an otaku either. Every since the original Dynasty Warriors game (I know that's Chinese not Japanese where the samurai hail from) So I really want to make it in a style similar to the OA books. But since the OA books have them so close to fighters I instead have been grabbing ideas from the prestige classes for the different clans. As I go further along here I see that there's no reason to do certain styles. IE the Crane is getting cut and I'm probably gonna scrap the dragon/phoenix styles and throw them into some kind of monk class later... That's a big maybe because I really like the monk out of the Tomes. Seeing as though I'm getting less tweaks on the Crab style I may be actually making progress.

If I find better words to express my goals I'll post them but that's the best exposition I can think of off the top of my head.

2) I'll add details like how they start off later. Off the cuff though I want Noble to be a class you take at first level. To be this class would mean that you actually have a deep connection (especially financially) to your House, Family, Organization and have the advanced leadership abilities. Something beyond just getting the leadership feat that makes you a true leader. I'll dip into my friend's saga edition book to look up what it says about nobles. Maybe It is put a better way.

3) Hmmm... I really like the ki point idea though T.T. I don't know yet if I'll get rid of it. I find it easier to tack on abilities based off of the ki point system without having to think of different limits per day/round to add to them. I think it was Akula that mentioned an expected ki use per round. If I can boil it down to that kind of expectation I can easily morph the ki point progression so that the player can at base can reach the mid level number of ki I can expect him to use in a given day and give him the option of going all out in a single fight too. I don't think I can go with the kiai option unless its with the Iaijutsu style (which I just might do come to think of it) because not every style has an overkill in one round build. the generic +2 onus is just to give them something to play around with until third level when they really start getting their real techniques. So for right now I'll stick with maybe on this one.

[IGTN]

The Wizard replacement I heard advocated was more on an individual game level. Something more like "I wouldn't recommend playing a Wizard. It's a lot of work and you can be as powerful as you should be by taking one of the specialist classes and not doing any work at all."

E: Here. The exact quote is:

I wouldn't recommend any wizard to anyone. Not because they aren't stupidly overpowered when played properly, but because you can get as much power as you probably ought to have just by writing Beguiler on your character sheet without doing any work at all.

Re: your classes:

AntiMage/Ishvalan Crusader: I like the character from full metal alchemist. And I want to get a class that you can actually take against wizards instead of having to make a class build for it. I want something that makes wizards afraid to walk around at night. Something that their contingency spells just can't handle. I love wizards (summoning) but I want to have something that seals them and their golem's doom.

Judging Eagle's Spell Scourge lower on this forum is an example of where you want to go with this, then (of course, that's exactly what it's for).

Note that you shouldn't need a specialist to take on a wizard, as they're kinda a big part of the world. In fact, at high levels, half the monster manual or more casts spells or uses spell-like abilities. Everyone needs to be able to go up against casters. You could build a class whose same game results are supposed to favor fighting the casting monsters over noncasting, though.

Noble: I want a person who brings men to the field and uses them effectively, Someone who can impose their will on others, or someone who simply makes other people better (without spells). So really I want a bad ass support character. I'm willing to lose the idea of the followers but I definitely want to keep the cohort and have abilities relating to it. Though like the samurai class I'll probably break down the Talent trees and just go with two different Noble builds.

This is really too much of a wall of text. I cut it down a bit for you.

So, we have a character who makes minions do their dirty work. Classes you might want to look to for inspiration are the Tome Marshal (don't remember where it is, but it's in the PDF), the Summoner (Tome of Fiends), the Druid, and Necromantic Creation feats. For imposing your will on others and having support abilities, that looks like you want to take some abilities from the Bard and make them not awful. There's definitely a niche for this.

Samurai: I like eastern culture. It doesn't help that I'm an otaku either. Every since the original Dynasty Warriors game (I know that's Chinese not Japanese where the samurai hail from) So I really want to make it in a style similar to the OA books. But since the OA books have them so close to fighters I instead have been grabbing ideas from the prestige classes for the different clans. As I go further along here I see that there's no reason to do certain styles. IE the Crane is getting cut and I'm probably gonna scrap the dragon/phoenix styles and throw them into some kind of monk class later... That's a big maybe because I really like the monk out of the Tomes. Seeing as though I'm getting less tweaks on the Crab style I may be actually making progress.

This doesn't really have what we're looking for in it, just says "vaguely like a fighter."

When designing your Samurai, what would you write on a post-it note to stick to your monitor as a reminder of what it's abilities are supposed to do?

[MGuy]

MGuy:

What do you think about the concept of a "Noble" which, as it advances, becomes a member of more and more privileged aristocracies, allowing it to command larger amounts of resources and minions?

For instance, a 5th level noble would have 4 level 1 Tome Warriors following it around, have a free cohort, and be able to summon mephits to do it favors (presumably for being a midranking courtier for one or more genie sultans.). At 15th level, this noble would have 4 Bone Devils, the extra cohort would still be there, and the you'd be calling up level 13 True Fiends who retroactively owe you a favor or 3.

The class would be very much like the Summoner but without as much adaptability. There'd probably be some abilities to represent having contacts and allies pretty much everywhere as well. This would let the Noble take advantage of local laws and governments.

Gameplay focus would be on having your allies fight in your place, since the actual PC is very little good when it comes to more bellicose obstacles. You might even just say the PC is staying home and adventure entirely with minions. It would probably appeal to the players who want to play multiple party members.

1) That is a nice idea, it being like a summoner. but... I don't think i want that. I never really thought about it in that way. i just thought cool lets get a cohort so he doesn't die immediately in battle. I don't want the cohort to be the mainstay of the class. Just a thing that grants the Noble survivability on the battle field. I want to make him a shield. I'm not gonna make any changes yet, seeing as though I'm trying to get a breakthrough with my Samurai (who seems to have garnered a lot of attention). My thoughts right now for future changes to the cohort would probably be something along the lines of making it more generic, credibly weaker than an actual class, but able to take a good beating and injure enemies. I would adjust and add abilities that make it a pain in the ass to actually take him away.

2) As for the intended focus I wanted to make it a purely supportive character. But seeing as though this would severely limit his effectiveness (I mean having a bodyguard as it is he would probably stand to reason that he would adventure on his own). So I'm probably gonna ramp up its abilities. I tried to take his abilities in a direction that's not often covered by making them Intimidate checks and driving the knife in with its Weakness is my Strength" ability which I do with the intention to trump abilities like Divine Grace. I have been mulling around with the Idea to expand the ability to effect the number he has to make his save against. IE when saving against a wizard spell his DC is changed to incorporate the wizard's Charisma mod instead of his intelligence.

The favor thing also sounds nice. I would make it like a Planar ally spell except he calls up NPCs with class levels instead of demon overlords. Tack on Use magic device to help him out too.

[Wulf]

Mguy, in general, people on the gaming den (and I assume anywhere else) would like their class to be usefull and atleast not *too* low in power. Giving class abilities based on feats is very low in power and usability. Basing class abilities on spell effects, is much more usefull.

I read FMA, so I assume it is Scar you want to emulate through a class. That guy is tough, fast, can destroy most things with a touch ...and he has red eyes to be more bad-ass.

So you simply give him D12 hitdie, instead of the toughness feat. His class abilities is mostly special touch attacks...dispell attacks, disintegration touches, pain touches. He is quick, so can give him evasion, and perhaps damage reduction since he is both tough and his "powers" negate stuff...so why not let him negate damage as well.

Whats with earth bolt? he can't manipulate earth..he can only destroy it. So at higher levels, he doesnt create a wave of earth, he cracks the earth open causing an earthquake (smaller ones at first). Same for liquids he "disintegrates"..he can create fogs with that to hide in and escape when the battle goes bad...just like in FMA

Actually, the pain touch and different ways to use it, reminds of a class created by DSP, the morphean. That class has a growning touch of pain and he could put additional effects on his pain touch attack. The morphean was all about fear and horror effects and was more rogueish/sneaky. Scar is more front-line asskicker, but the idea of morphean touch system could be used for the Scar-class.

[MGuy]

Thank you for the input.

I've started doing just that (basing abilities on spells) I do have a question as to whether or not diving into supplement books (Spell Compendium/PHB 2) might be going to far with it.

You are correct in that Scar is the guy.

1D12?! do I dare cross into barbarian hp range? Plus people have said that adding Hp doesn't do much in a fight. I don't think Scar was actually any tougher than the other alchemists. He was fast though and the class has evasion (though I think I'll award it at a lower level... maybe)

His powers destroyed things but don't protect him from damage. I can't think of a real reason to give it DR.

Earthbolt was there when I found the first parts of this class in the first place. I just kept it to give him the option of hitting at range. The whole destroy things with a touch is true and I'll probably augment it to make it better able to do just that but its not a major concern right now.

I'll look into the morphean, but I really don't want to give it any abilities beyond: I touch you you die.

[Wulf]

Scar has no or light armor, so yeah, D12 is fine. What you say is contradictionary anyway. Seems you dont know which opinion to follow.

Yeah, hitpoints has less of an impact at higher level as you get fucked by spell saves. But it can save you a bit more at lower levels like against orcs. And yes you dare, its only +1 hp per level more at average then the fighter, who has full plate armor (which is also only mostly usefull at low levels). Talking about saves..give him two high ones, not one . People should have *few* weakness, not many. Archilles had only one spot ,not 22 different ones. Enemies should figure out your single weakness, rather then simply choose a random power to hurt you.

Scar fulfills the role of the barbarian, bringing the hurt. He has little armor like the barbarian, and he fights in the frontlines, like the barbarian. Not giving him d12 is insulting Scar...and you dont want that, cause he *will* find you.

And he was physically tougher then most alchemists! The only one who was his equal was that powerbuilder alchemist (forgot his name). You cant really compare Scar's tough and trained body with an ordinary man.

Also you should not be afraid to give the class abilities that go beyond Scar. Scar is a human of level 5 or 6, but D&D goes beyond that (toward demigods). He simply has a powerful ability. So yes, the ritual tattoo becomes more advanced at higher levels, offering protection by "destroying" material that impact him...ie, lowering damage. Damage reduction is simply there to make him fullfill the role of frontline fighter. See it like an aura, an ongoing effect of his "destruction" power. Aslong as his higher powers are in the theme of destruction and negation, its all good. Even if you want to emulate scar in higher levels, you simply can play that by not using all the abilities your class grants (or simply explain it differently).

In the end, atleast non-magical weapons will simply be destroyed when they hit him

[MGuy]

*AUDIBLE GASP* How dare you forget the name of the prestigious Armstrong! He has more integrity in his muscles than anyone in the entire series!

*ahem* You bring up an interesting point. more Hp definitely wont hurt anything I suppose. If anyone seconds the motion consider it done.

True but maybe I can do better than that. It was mentioned that his brother (the one who gave him the arm) had some kind of other ability in his other arm. I think it was the opposite in that it constructed things (Conjuration Healing) which is how he grafted the arm to Scar in the first place. I'll probably look into seeing about that. Maybe he can create stone walls at will? make something out of nothing?

-Side note: It all ready gets all good saves.

This doesn't really have what we're looking for in it, just says "vaguely like a fighter."

When designing your Samurai, what would you write on a post-it note to stick to your monitor as a reminder of what it's abilities are supposed to do?

Ahh I keep those! Here's the list!

Crab: What does it do? Defence: High Defense, High HP, High Fort/Will, Constitution Based

Crane: What do they do? They are said to be artisans, skilled, with the ability to move swiftly and subtly. No reason found to keep it. Will be terminated and with its abilies to be absorbed by other styles or dropped completely.

Lion: What does it do? They hurt things, inspires allies to hurt things, and imposes fear on others who don't want to be hurt. Strength based

Dragon/phoenix: What does it do? Ascetic warriors and Mystic warriors who are masters of two weapon and unarmed fighting and mystical abilities. Getting the two weapon fighting in might be interesting but not entirely worth it keeping. I'd probably have to remake the whole class just to make unarmed damage worth it. Phoenix's best abilities seem to be just having a bigger ki pool and getting the best of spells cast on it. Probably not worth keeping either of them even combined. Will eliminate the style but possibly put they're abilities toward making a monk or mystic of some sort.

Scorpions: What do they do? Underhanded fighters who use deadly attacks to swiftly kill their opponents. Not really worth keeping when compared to the full rogue. I like the style however . Will think about whether to keep it or drop it later. Int based

Unicorn: What do they Do? Masters of Animal handling and movement on the battlefield. A lot of potential here that has not been reached. Will overhaul the abilities later. Cha based

Raiden: What do they do? Masters of Ranged Combat. Able to rain down a storm of steel upon all enemies on the field of battle. Definitely going to keep but must expand the abilities. Going to make them able to hit everything on the battlefield at once. Dex Based

Isijutsu: What do they do? They bring down enemies with a furious rain of quick, decisive blows. Need to up the abilities and hand some of the bigger ones out at earlier levels. Will probably take notes from Franks Samurai and adopt some of the Crane abilities. Cha based subject to change. Wis as possible option.

Shadow: What do they do? Employ mysterious and dark powers that foil causes of good and evil. Another Mystic. Probably will be better for ninja. Will probably eliminate from style list and put into some sort of ninja class.

Those are the notes (as written) I have so far on that front So really just expect 6 of the forms to even have a chance to make it any further.

Also I'll look up those classes you mentioned.