[Class] Hero

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God_of_Awesome
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[Class] Hero

Post by God_of_Awesome »

Hero
"Halt villains!"

This class is obvious. You're a big damn hero. You're just filled with wierd as fuck special talents and eventually out and out super powers.

Playing A Hero: I expect the Hero will use all physical stats. Being a big damn hero, charisma will become important too. You fight in the front lines too so... yeah.

Starting Age: The call of the hero can start at any age. As long as you run, swing a sword and string two sentences together, you're propably elligible.
Allignment: You're a Good guy!

HD: d10
BAB: Good
Good Saves: Fort and Will
Class Skills: All of them until I can think of a better reason not to.

Hero
01: Hero
02:
03:
04:
05:
06:
07:
08: Super Hero
09:
10:
11:
12:
13:
14:
15: Legendary Hero
16:
17:
18:
19:
20: Immortal Hero

Class Features

Weapon Proficiency: You are proficient with all simple and martial weapons as well as all armor and shields, except the tower shield.

Hero (Ex): Every level, you may choose to gain an ability from the Heroic Ability List. At 1st level, you may choose three.

Super Hero (Ex): At 8th level, you become a Super Hero* and you may begin taking abilities from the Super Heroic Ability List. You are now immune to death effects and any unwanted transformation.

Legendary Hero (Ex): At 15th level, you become a Legendary Hero* and you may begin taking abilities from the Legendary Heroic Ability List. All Good-alligned NPCs are automatically friendly towards you and you gain the Command [Combat] feat.

Immortal Hero (Ex): At 20th level, you become an Immortal Hero* and you may begin taking abilities from the Immortal Heroic Ability List. You also automatically gain both the Gate and Outsider ability (See below).

*Change your character sheet accordingly.
Last edited by God_of_Awesome on Fri Jan 29, 2010 6:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Frank on the Fighter (Abridged)
FrankTrollman wrote:
God_of_Awesome wrote: Could I inquire on the motive behind the design decisions on the Fighter class?
...

The Fighter is intended to be, like the Wizard, a character who can and does adapt their tactics to the opposition and draws upon player experience to deliver tactical victories. And to do it without "feeling" like it was using Magic.

...

So honestly, when someone tells me "I know the game backwards and forwards, and when I pull out all the stops with the Fighter I totally win!" And my response is "OK, good." Because that's exactly what people report with the Wizard too.

-Username17
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Post by God_of_Awesome »

Saved for Heroic Ability Lists

Heroic Ability List
Weapons Master (Ex): You gain proficiency with all exotic weapons and the tower shield.

Daredevil Powers (Ex): Blind sense out to 60 feet.

Toph Powers (Ex): Tremor sense out to 120 feet.

Rage (Ex): As Barbarian.*

Good Night Vision (Ex): You gain low-light vision. If you already have that (By this ability or by something else), you gain dark vision out to 60 feet. If you have Light-sensitivity problems, you may choose 'Good Day Vision' as well, negating that.

Nose Knows (Ex): You gain Scent.

Trollish Regeneration (Ex): You gain Regen 1 except against Fire and Acid.

Primal Assault (Ex): You gain Bite, Claw and Slam attack. These attacks are made with a -2 penalty and are treated as Secondary attacks but you may use all of them during a Full Attack, even if the appendage is otherwise occupied with a weapon. Each does Xd3 damage, X being your Str mod.

Good Judge of Character (Ex): You gain a +10 bonus to your Sense Motive check and can immitate the Detect Evil spell.

Dragoon (Ex): You gain a +10 to your Jump check and can perform a Jump Attack. When you perform a Jump Attack, you do a Jump Check vs Target's Height. Suceeding doubles the Crit Range of your attack.

Speedy (Ex): You gain +10 bonus to your base land speed. Special: You may take this as many times as you want.

Talking Animal: You may gain an animal companion from the Wizard's Familiar list. This animal has Mental Ability scores of 10 across the board and has 2 points in every Mental Ability dependent skill except Use Magic Device.

Talking Weapon: You gain a talking weapon of any sort. It has Mental Ability scores of 12 across the boards and 5 points in every Mental Ability dependent skill.
*RoW Barbarian normally, unless you thing it makes the RoW Barbarian redundant. Then PHB Barbarian.

Super Heroic Ability List
Wolverine Regen (Ex): You gain Regen 5. Special: You may take this again every 5th level.

Snikt (Ex): You gain three +5 adamantine vorpal daggers attached to each hand. You can retract and detract any number of them into you hand at-will. You treat these as natural weapons.

Ghast Attack (Ex): Those hit by any melee attack made by you must suceed a DC 15 Fort save or be paralyzed for 1d4+1 rounds. Even elves.

Golem (Ex): You may immitate Stoneskin, as spell, at-will.

Collossus (Ex): Once per day, you may immitate Iron Body, as-spell.

Flight (Ex): You may immitate Fly, as-spell, at-will with unlimited duration.

Energy Beams (Ex): A number of times per day equal to your Con mod, you may fire a ranged touch attack that does Xd6 Force damage, X being your Str mod. The range is X x 10 ft, X in this case being your Dex mod.

Breath Weapon (Ex): You gain a breath weapon as a 7th level Dragon Disciple. Special: You may take this multiple times, each time taking the breath weapon of a different dragon.

Unusual Anatomy (Ex): You grow two tentacles with stingers and horns. You gain two tentacle, two sting and a gore attack. Each stinger can absorb a poison, using that poison in their attacks and granting you immunity to that poison. Otherwise like Primal Assault. Special: You may take this ability multiple times, each time gaining more horns and sting-ended tentacles.

Energy Immunity (Ex): You gain immunity to a particular type of energy. Special: You may take this ability multiple times, each time gaining immunity to another energy type.
Legendary Heroic Ability List
Gate (Ex): You may immitate Gate, as spell, once per day.

Outsider (Ex): You become an Outsider, with all that it implies. When you die, you still go to your appropiate plane but as a native instead of a petitioner. You can simply be brought back by a Gate spell. Special: You cannot take this ability and the Gate ability both.

Summon (Ex): You can immitate any Summon Monster spell of half your level (IE, you can immitate Summon Monster IX at level 18) a number of times per day equal to your Con mod. You can summon any good-alligned monster or an elemental.

Need more :(
Immortal Heroic Ability List
A Winner Is You (Ex): You win DnD.
Still accepting suggestions for abilities.
Last edited by God_of_Awesome on Fri Jan 29, 2010 6:51 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Frank on the Fighter (Abridged)
FrankTrollman wrote:
God_of_Awesome wrote: Could I inquire on the motive behind the design decisions on the Fighter class?
...

The Fighter is intended to be, like the Wizard, a character who can and does adapt their tactics to the opposition and draws upon player experience to deliver tactical victories. And to do it without "feeling" like it was using Magic.

...

So honestly, when someone tells me "I know the game backwards and forwards, and when I pull out all the stops with the Fighter I totally win!" And my response is "OK, good." Because that's exactly what people report with the Wizard too.

-Username17
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik »

Suggestion 1) Die in a fire.

Suggestion 2) Super Hero is shitty. "save or die" is not a concrete term with fixed boundaries. Is Baleful Polymorph? How about Hold Monster? How about fuck you.

Give it something that doesn't require an hour of metagame arguing to even play. Either say he automatically rolls only 20s on saving throws, so I can punch you in the face you bastard, or give him immunity to death effects.
Unrestricted Diplomat 5314 wrote:Accept this truth, as the wisdom of the Crafted: when the oppressors and abusers have won, when the boot of the callous has already trampled you flat, you should always, always take your swing."
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Maxus
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Post by Maxus »

I would go for a Quest for Glory tone here, because it's honestly the only way I'd feel comfortable with a class labeled "Hero".

So, I'd want a sort of "Build your own Elothar" list here to bounce around life and pick up skills and abilities, such as limited spell useage, healing, sneak attack, and so on.

Even that would be extremely tough to do, though, and likely works better in the computer game.
Last edited by Maxus on Fri Jan 29, 2010 6:00 pm, edited 1 time in total.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Post by God_of_Awesome »

Kaelik wrote:Suggestion 1) Die in a fire.

Suggestion 2) Super Hero is shitty. "save or die" is not a concrete term with fixed boundaries. Is Baleful Polymorph? How about Hold Monster? How about fuck you.

Give it something that doesn't require an hour of metagame arguing to even play. Either say he automatically rolls only 20s on saving throws, so I can punch you in the face you bastard, or give him immunity to death effects.
So are you always PMSing?

Edit: Edited in your suggestion. Also immunity to baleful polymorph.
Last edited by God_of_Awesome on Fri Jan 29, 2010 6:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Frank on the Fighter (Abridged)
FrankTrollman wrote:
God_of_Awesome wrote: Could I inquire on the motive behind the design decisions on the Fighter class?
...

The Fighter is intended to be, like the Wizard, a character who can and does adapt their tactics to the opposition and draws upon player experience to deliver tactical victories. And to do it without "feeling" like it was using Magic.

...

So honestly, when someone tells me "I know the game backwards and forwards, and when I pull out all the stops with the Fighter I totally win!" And my response is "OK, good." Because that's exactly what people report with the Wizard too.

-Username17
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Maxus
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Post by Maxus »

God_of_Awesome wrote:
Kaelik wrote:Suggestion 1) Die in a fire.

Suggestion 2) Super Hero is shitty. "save or die" is not a concrete term with fixed boundaries. Is Baleful Polymorph? How about Hold Monster? How about fuck you.

Give it something that doesn't require an hour of metagame arguing to even play. Either say he automatically rolls only 20s on saving throws, so I can punch you in the face you bastard, or give him immunity to death effects.
So are you always PMSing?
Kaelik's sort of like Frank. Abrasive. But he doesn't ever stop being abrasive (much less nerdhating everything), and doesn't have the consistently awesome design skills. So I don't pay 'em much attention.
He jumps like a damned dragoon, and charges into battle fighting rather insane monsters with little more than his bare hands and rather nasty spell effects conjured up solely through knowledge and the local plantlife. He unerringly knows where his goal lies, he breathes underwater and is untroubled by space travel, seems to have no limits to his actual endurance and favors killing his enemies by driving both boots square into their skull. His agility is unmatched, and his strength legendary, able to fling about a turtle shell big enough to contain a man with enough force to barrel down a near endless path of unfortunates.

--The horror of Mario

Zak S, Zak Smith, Dndwithpornstars, Zak Sabbath. He is a terrible person and a hack at writing and art. His cultural contributions are less than Justin Bieber's, and he's a shitmuffin. Go go gadget Googlebomb!
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Post by Mask_De_H »

Yeah, Kaelik's like a constantly pissed Frank with twice the rage, but this basically takes the criticism of the Inevitable and goes to the opposite extreme. You have a bunch of random abilities that don't synergize or make a lot of sense in context outside of the loose superhero connection. If the Inevitable is the PHB fighter, this is the PHB Wizard, you have no class features, just power.

Also, having L20 only major class features is teh suck. Even if they are "you win.". Just put that as a capstone and bump Immortal to L16.
Last edited by Mask_De_H on Fri Jan 29, 2010 8:01 pm, edited 2 times in total.
FrankTrollman wrote: Halfling women, as I'm sure you are aware, combine all the "fun" parts of pedophilia without any of the disturbing, illegal, or immoral parts.
K wrote:That being said, the usefulness of airships for society is still transporting cargo because it's an option that doesn't require a powerful wizard to show up for work on time instead of blowing the day in his harem of extraplanar sex demons/angels.
Chamomile wrote: See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.
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Post by Kaelik »

Mask_De_H wrote:Yeah, Kaelik's like a constantly pissed Frank with twice the rage
Meh. I think that's a false impression. I just don't do as much design work as Frank, and don't have the chops to post things like "here's a list of concepts and names and their respective copyright statuses."

So a greater percentage of my posts are me being provoked to rage because I can't make as many informative or design posts.

I'm probably not any more angry than Frank in general, and confirmation bias probably easily covers those times I'm not.

It's not like I don't tell people why their designes are shitty, I just don't always have time to do it right then. One of the things about posting at work.

In this case, I'm saving my specific criticisms for the existance of content, (so I criticized the content that was present.)

But I know it's going to be a crappy class because it's written by Goa, just like I know a text wall is coming when it's posted by JE.

If it turns out to not be ass, I'll be the first to admit it, but it is going to be ass, and you can see that from how the actual theme and structure are made of ass.
Unrestricted Diplomat 5314 wrote:Accept this truth, as the wisdom of the Crafted: when the oppressors and abusers have won, when the boot of the callous has already trampled you flat, you should always, always take your swing."
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Post by God_of_Awesome »

Mask: Synergize? What do you mean by that?

Maxus: And Quest of Glory? What is that?
Frank on the Fighter (Abridged)
FrankTrollman wrote:
God_of_Awesome wrote: Could I inquire on the motive behind the design decisions on the Fighter class?
...

The Fighter is intended to be, like the Wizard, a character who can and does adapt their tactics to the opposition and draws upon player experience to deliver tactical victories. And to do it without "feeling" like it was using Magic.

...

So honestly, when someone tells me "I know the game backwards and forwards, and when I pull out all the stops with the Fighter I totally win!" And my response is "OK, good." Because that's exactly what people report with the Wizard too.

-Username17
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Post by Quantumboost »

God_of_Awesome wrote:Maxus: And Quest of Glory? What is that?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Quest+for+Glory
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Post by RobbyPants »

Damnit. Now I feel like playing QfG again. I don't have that kind of free time. :p
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Post by Guyr Adamantine »

God_of_Awesome wrote:Mask: Synergize? What do you mean by that?

Maxus: And Quest of Glory? What is that?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quest_for_Glory

Point-and-click adventure games. Classics.

EDIT: Slow posting is slow.
Last edited by Guyr Adamantine on Fri Jan 29, 2010 9:53 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Avoraciopoctules »

There's a freeware remake of QfG2 here:
http://www.agdinteractive.com/games/qfg ... epage.html
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Post by God_of_Awesome »

Okay, here was the allusion I was try to make:

From level 1-7, the PHB Fighter is a fine character. The implication is that from 1-7, being a badass normal is fine. The Heroic Abilities are all ones that are, supposedly, achievable through training (In cartoon land, anyway) or at least not so far out of the realm of possibility as to be galling, with the sole exception of Trolling Regeneration which didn't seem all that galling to me considering the setting.

If you play this character from 1-7, he stays simply a bad ass normal. Once you reach level 8, the implication I got was that was when you explicitly needed to become supernatural. However, instead of going for 'It's Magic' route, I decided to have a character the remained 'natural' while being unnatural, which doesn't make any goddamn sense really.

What I'm saying is that I was making a correlation between the usual backstory of stress and training awakenking latent mutant powers and the need to become something explicitly more then human at later levels. I guess it's possible that this an idea that only occured and works for me.

Am I making myself clear or am I just rambling?
Last edited by God_of_Awesome on Sat Jan 30, 2010 12:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
Frank on the Fighter (Abridged)
FrankTrollman wrote:
God_of_Awesome wrote: Could I inquire on the motive behind the design decisions on the Fighter class?
...

The Fighter is intended to be, like the Wizard, a character who can and does adapt their tactics to the opposition and draws upon player experience to deliver tactical victories. And to do it without "feeling" like it was using Magic.

...

So honestly, when someone tells me "I know the game backwards and forwards, and when I pull out all the stops with the Fighter I totally win!" And my response is "OK, good." Because that's exactly what people report with the Wizard too.

-Username17
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik »

Only done Heroic so far, but bottom line, your character is ass still.

Most of those abilities are less than the falvor abilities that other people get at levels where they also get something cool.

Then you have some insansly good shit for no reason.

A level 1 Hero has Troll Regen (aka fast healing one 90% of the time + getting back up when you go down), Rage (+2 morale to hit and damage) and three claws.

If I were really optimizing, add Infernal Dalliance for Fire immunity, and level 2 dip to get Acid immunity.

So then we have a level 1 character with: eternal living except coup de graces and acid, always healing, and a full attack routine of +9/+7/+7/+7 for 2d6+11/6d3+8(x3)

And then you roflstomp everything until level 6, when you upgrade that with Large Size.

Meanwhile, try to make any character at all that isn't ass with you class that has none of those three abilities.

All your other abilities are shit, and I don't even care whether I take blindsense 60ft or Tremorsense 120ft at level 2, because I'm going to take the other at level 3 and start wishing I could access the next list right after.
Unrestricted Diplomat 5314 wrote:Accept this truth, as the wisdom of the Crafted: when the oppressors and abusers have won, when the boot of the callous has already trampled you flat, you should always, always take your swing."
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Post by Judging__Eagle »

Being a bad ass normal only works if you actually are bad ass.

The fighter is able to be embarrassed at level 1, by a wizard with Sleep, and a light pick, or a scythe. You need to prevent that sort of embarrassment.

Kaelik's right on fail options, and insta-win options. You have to have actual options. Players have to debate between "regen like a troll; and have mental stats like a troll" or "ability to use two swords like Leg of Lass, elf paragon, but be frail for some fluff reason".

If players don't debate over choices, you didn't actually put in a choice. You might as well have written in the ability as a class ability, and added in your fluff abilities on the side.
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Post by Mask_De_H »

Yeah, level 8 flight and level 8 retarded amount of natural attacks does not equal to MAD eye beams and Energy Immunity. Do you realize how rare Regen 6 is? And that you can get 10 natural attacks plus two +5 vorpal weapons at level 9? Do you realize how fucked that is? I mean, seriously, that's some Polymorph cheese shit.
FrankTrollman wrote: Halfling women, as I'm sure you are aware, combine all the "fun" parts of pedophilia without any of the disturbing, illegal, or immoral parts.
K wrote:That being said, the usefulness of airships for society is still transporting cargo because it's an option that doesn't require a powerful wizard to show up for work on time instead of blowing the day in his harem of extraplanar sex demons/angels.
Chamomile wrote: See, it's because K's belief in leaving generation of individual monsters to GMs makes him Chaotic, whereas Frank's belief in the easier usability of monsters pre-generated by game designers makes him Lawful, and clearly these philosophies are so irreconcilable as to be best represented as fundamentally opposed metaphysical forces.
Whipstitch wrote:You're on a mad quest, dude. I'd sooner bet on Zeus getting bored and letting Sisyphus put down the fucking rock.
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Post by God_of_Awesome »

Okay, now here's a question, and Kaelik I will take your answer with a grain of salt, is the base mechanic, choosing a new ability from a list and getting a new and better list approximatley every level after every seventh, a viable thing?

Because if so, and the only problem is that the lists are ass, I can fix that. If it is but you need something else besides. Like add some more abilities to auto-get, such as immunity to death effect? More lists to make sure you have level appropiateness? Both? Some something else?

If not, then I guess the entire concept is shit and we can just go home.
Frank on the Fighter (Abridged)
FrankTrollman wrote:
God_of_Awesome wrote: Could I inquire on the motive behind the design decisions on the Fighter class?
...

The Fighter is intended to be, like the Wizard, a character who can and does adapt their tactics to the opposition and draws upon player experience to deliver tactical victories. And to do it without "feeling" like it was using Magic.

...

So honestly, when someone tells me "I know the game backwards and forwards, and when I pull out all the stops with the Fighter I totally win!" And my response is "OK, good." Because that's exactly what people report with the Wizard too.

-Username17
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Post by Parthenon »

It's completely non-viable to have the class solely that.

At 1st level a Heroic ability is supposed to be level appropriate.
At 7th level the same Heroic ability is supposed to be level appropriate.

Now, this means that each ability has to be both equivalent to 1st level spells and 4th level spells. This is not feasible.

You might try to salvage it by having more shorter lists, having each ability automatically scale or synergise well, but the first gets really complex, the second leads to basically getting a Tome feat each level and the other is incredibly difficult.

I don't think that this approach is going to go anywhere.
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Post by God_of_Awesome »

Actually the first idea isn't that bad.

Instead of Heroic, Super Heroics, etc, I could make Tiers, ten in all with access to a new one every odd level. Alongside tiers, every or so even level could have an interesting or necessary auto-ability, such as immunity to death effects.

I could also replace any regen with self-healing, the difference being that damage is still lethal.
Frank on the Fighter (Abridged)
FrankTrollman wrote:
God_of_Awesome wrote: Could I inquire on the motive behind the design decisions on the Fighter class?
...

The Fighter is intended to be, like the Wizard, a character who can and does adapt their tactics to the opposition and draws upon player experience to deliver tactical victories. And to do it without "feeling" like it was using Magic.

...

So honestly, when someone tells me "I know the game backwards and forwards, and when I pull out all the stops with the Fighter I totally win!" And my response is "OK, good." Because that's exactly what people report with the Wizard too.

-Username17
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Post by Kaelik »

Those sorts of lists can be done, see the Totemist/Soulborn/Incarnate/lesser extent, Soldier.

The problem is that your class is generically genericized to gerenicness if that's all it gets, in which case, it's boring.

All four of those classes have other class abilities.

But bottom line, here is why you fail:

Steps for sane people:
1) What do you want the class to do.
2) How do I make that happen.
3) Level appropriate.

Steps for you:
1) Level appropriate? COOL MECHANIC! I go make class now, I'll figure out what it's supposed to be and do later.
2) Later.

Stop writing mechanics. You don't see it, because people don't show it, but when you write a class, you figure out what you want the damn thing to do before you ever assign a mechanic.

Look at Franks write up of "what a class is" and "how do you play this class" It's fluff sure, but it also provides insight into what he was thinking when he made the class.

When I made the Storm Lord, the first thing I did was bitch about how Air Mages suck. And then, instead of like you, running with this idea and making a class that is just a collection of crap, I sat down and hammered out everything I thought an "Air Mage" should do.

And I discovered that the reason all Air Mages are crap is because Air Mage is too limited to provide real abilities without going into crazy town "size matters not" land, and frankly, Sylar is a boring character class and he's only cool because he's not a goody two shoes like everyone else.

So I thought about what went with it and developed a giant list of things storm mages do. And then from that list I started worrying about how to reflect that.

TL/DR: Don't write mechanics, write an actual fluff description of what kind of things the character class does, like Frank did for the various different soulknife classes in the soulknife thread.
Unrestricted Diplomat 5314 wrote:Accept this truth, as the wisdom of the Crafted: when the oppressors and abusers have won, when the boot of the callous has already trampled you flat, you should always, always take your swing."
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Post by God_of_Awesome »

That...

That is the amongst the most useful advise I have been given on this subject. Thanks, Kael.
Frank on the Fighter (Abridged)
FrankTrollman wrote:
God_of_Awesome wrote: Could I inquire on the motive behind the design decisions on the Fighter class?
...

The Fighter is intended to be, like the Wizard, a character who can and does adapt their tactics to the opposition and draws upon player experience to deliver tactical victories. And to do it without "feeling" like it was using Magic.

...

So honestly, when someone tells me "I know the game backwards and forwards, and when I pull out all the stops with the Fighter I totally win!" And my response is "OK, good." Because that's exactly what people report with the Wizard too.

-Username17
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Post by Red_Rob »

Wow, its like that episode of South Park where they found a portal to the Evil dimension, but the Evil Cartman was really nice and helpful. Who are you and what have you done with Kaelik!?!

No really, that was concise, considered and helpful advice that you obviously took time over and got to the core of why GoA's class seemed disjointed. I'd say its almost a primer on class design.

Colour me impressed.
Simplified Tome Armor.

Tome item system and expanded Wish Economy rules.

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