Warlock (Take 5, Version 12, Set 3, Section 6, Clause 2)

[ubernoob]

Or you could just do something simple like not base it on your stat. "A Warlock can have 6 active spells with base durations shorter than hour/level and only two of these can be of the warlock's top level" is a fine mechanic. Seriously, just don't do that retarded shit where it's based off of a stat (which can vary wildly from game to game). Having a +2 to your stat add an additional spell active all the time is ten kinds of retarded.

Or, you can just base it on the stat if the stat has an easily calculated maximum which is also the level you want it at, and you want people to have to trade off between casting ability and physical stats, so someone trying to Cleric Melee has to actually keep their wisdom up instead of dumping it for Strength.

And that way, people, like for example you, can't exceed the intentional cap, and it can also progress as you level just fine.

Or instead of doing shit ass backwards you could just explicitly state how many buffs active is appropriate at each level. It's a fuck ton simpler and doesn't fuck people over when their DM gives them an array that doesn't include an 18 or bans Aasimar or whatever the fuck.

Seriously, just use some god damn rails. If X number of buffs is appropriate, then it's appropriate. End of discussion. Pick a number and stick to it because basing it off of something that varies from game to game like stats is retarded.

Edit: For an example of how this works, look at Frank's Totemist.

[Kaelik]

If X AB is appropriate, just give everyone a +Y and don't let them add Str.

If Y number of spells is okay, just make Wizards have Y spells, no bonus spells based on stats.

If Z is a good save DC, just make the save DC Z and don't base it on attributes.

Your idea is stupid. If you want to play a game in which peoples' abilities are not based on attributes, play a a game besides D&D.

It's a fundamental conception of D&D that peoples attributes affect how good they are at things. To say that I should just make the class not use attributes is fucking retarded.

If you want a higher Con, sometimes it comes at the cost of Wisdom, fucking deal. That makes you worse at casting. That's just how it works, and that's how it works for every class in the game.

[Username17]

If X AB is appropriate, just give everyone a +Y and don't let them add Str.

If Y number of spells is okay, just make Wizards have Y spells, no bonus spells based on stats.

If Z is a good save DC, just make the save DC Z and don't base it on attributes.

Those are great ideas.

-Username17

[Kaelik]

If X AB is appropriate, just give everyone a +Y and don't let them add Str.

If Y number of spells is okay, just make Wizards have Y spells, no bonus spells based on stats.

If Z is a good save DC, just make the save DC Z and don't base it on attributes.

Those are great ideas.

-Username17

They are "great ideas" if you want a game to not be based on attributes, but if that's what you want, you shouldn't be playing D&D.

[NineInchNall]

Or ... Since you're making a homebrew class anyway, just do that. I mean, one of the things we do around here is identify the problematic things and not do them. That includes, I don't know, basing stuff on attributes.

[Mask_De_H]

If X AB is appropriate, just give everyone a +Y and don't let them add Str.

If Y number of spells is okay, just make Wizards have Y spells, no bonus spells based on stats.

If Z is a good save DC, just make the save DC Z and don't base it on attributes.

Those are great ideas.

-Username17

They are "great ideas" if you want a game to not be based on attributes, but if that's what you want, you shouldn't be playing D&D.

Well excuuuse me princess. A good chunk of the Tome MO is getting rid of bullshit bounses and bringing things into a more manageable baseline. If that means flat bonuses and only those bonuses or using more easily controlled numbers(like character level), then so be it. Again, the less bookkeeping the better.

[Kaelik]

Or ... Since you're making a homebrew class anyway, just do that. I mean, one of the things we do around here is identify the problematic things and not do them. That includes, I don't know, basing stuff on attributes.

Or since I see no reason to give Warlocks free license to have 18 Con and Dex and everything else an 8, I'll just base it on a Mental Stat that scales, forcing them to make the same decisions that everyone else makes, and be less powerful than if I just replaced all the numbers of an optimized Wisdom build with straight numbers independent of Wisdom.

[ubernoob]

Or ... Since you're making a homebrew class anyway, just do that. I mean, one of the things we do around here is identify the problematic things and not do them. That includes, I don't know, basing stuff on attributes.

Or since I see no reason to give Warlocks free license to have 18 Con and Dex and everything else an 8, I'll just base it on a Mental Stat that scales, forcing them to make the same decisions that everyone else makes, and be less powerful than if I just replaced all the numbers of an optimized Wisdom build with straight numbers independent of Wisdom.

Worst case scenario the warlock is getting an 18 con instead of a 14 con. The dex score doesn't even matter. Just give it a shitty d6 hit die and it won't even matter.

And yes, I am aware that the class already has a d6 HD. That's fine for a casty class.

[Kaelik]

Example Invoker: level 5. (Has higher Wisdom than an Invoker should, because of odd rolling scheme that gives 20 pre racial stats, and abuses age category.)

Features of Note:

1) Hastes Group.
2) Divinations of Awesome.
3) Opens Doors.
4) Creates Stone Walls.
5) Teleports as per Dimension Door.

Combat:

Active Spells: Death Knell, Haste, 3 Protections from Energy.

Effectively immune to three elements. (changeable, can give to others)

Combat attacks:

Shadow Spray or Lahm's Finger Darts.

Level 6 grants quickened Seething Eyebanes each round.

[ubernoob]

So, he gets D Door at will before anyone else in the game can ever cast it on top of giving the party 24/7 haste while being immune to three elements. Oh, and he can deal 2d4 dex damage no save at will without an attack roll.

You know what a fifth level wizard is doing? Running around with mage armor and phantom steed dropping glitterdust and solid fog.

So yeah, your class has way fucking better defenses than a wizard and nearly as good offense (and you could just drop one immunity and just start dropping solid fogs or glitterdusts).

This class is terrible.

[Kaelik]

So, he gets D Door at will before anyone else in the game can ever cast it on top of giving the party 24/7 haste while being immune to three elements. Oh, and he can deal 2d4 dex damage no save at will without an attack roll.

You know what a fifth level wizard is doing? Running around with mage armor and phantom steed dropping glitterdust and solid fog.

So yeah, your class has way fucking better defenses than a wizard and nearly as good offense (and you could just drop one immunity and just start dropping solid fogs or glitterdusts).

This class is terrible.

Since other people can have Greater Teleport at will at this level, not terribly worried about DD.

But yes, he gives out 24/7 haste, and uses basically the same attack actions as a conduit of the lower planes.

[Rejakor]

Kaelik - Like Roy, you seem to have some trouble understanding how people play the game.

People don't usually milk a class for all it's combat potential. Even veteran minmaxers/game-designers-who-use-math usually don't do this.

Making a base class that is comparable to a maxed out cleric or wizard using all their feats and PrCs is not suitable for Tome.

[Korwin]

At least the Dimension Door shouldnt be a problem in an Tome Game...

Greater Teleport [Celestial], [Monstrous]
The extraplanar blood running through your veins allows
you to use the signature travel methods of the
outer planes.
Prerequisite: Outsider, character level 5+
Benefit: You may use greater teleport at will as a
spell-like ability. You may only transport yourself and
50 pounds of carried items.

Or:

Product of Celestial Dalliance
One of your recent ancestors was a Celestial Outsider or from a good-aligned plane. Maybe your parents play it off as a virgin birth, maybe your dad became a Saint.
Benefits: You may take any [Celestial] feat. Additionally, you gain Resistance 5 to Acid, Cold, and Electricity; the [Angel], [Archon], [Eladrin], or [Guardinal] subtype; and a Smite Evil attack usable at will that does bonus damage equal to 1=2 of your strength modifier.
Special: Can only be taken at 1st level.

Traits
An archon possesses the following traits (unless otherwise noted in a creature’s entry).

• Darkvision out to 60 feet and low-light vision.
• Aura of Menace (Su): A righteous aura surrounds archons that fight or get angry. Any hostile creature within a 20-foot radius of an archon must succeed on a Will save to resist its effects. The save DC varies with the type of archon, is Charisma-based, and includes a +2 racial bonus. Those who fail take a -2 penalty on attacks, AC, and saves for 24 hours or until they successfully hit the archon that generated the aura. A creature that has resisted or broken the effect cannot be affected again by the same archon’s aura for 24 hours.
• Immunity to electricity and petrification.
• +4 racial bonus on saves against poison.
• Magic Circle against Evil (Su): A magic circle against evil effect always surrounds an archon (caster level equals the archon’s Hit Dice). (The defensive benefits from the circle are not included in an archon’s statistics block.)
• Teleport (Su): Archons can use greater teleport at will, as the spell (caster level 14th), except that the creature can transport only itself and up to 50 pounds of objects.
• Tongues (Su): All archons can speak with any creature that has a language, as though using a tongues spell (caster level 14th). This ability is always active.

[Kaelik]

Kaelik - Like Roy, you seem to have some trouble understanding how people play the game.

People don't usually milk a class for all it's combat potential. Even veteran minmaxers/game-designers-who-use-math usually don't do this.

Making a base class that is comparable to a maxed out cleric or wizard using all their feats and PrCs is not suitable for Tome.

Rejakor, try to be less stupid. I'm not building a class that matches a Wizard or Cleric at it's best.

I'm building a class that matches a Conduit of the lower planes in combat.

I have demonstrated multiple times that a well built Wizard/Cleric is superior in every possible way to this class.

Wizard > Invoker. That means that the Invoker is not as good as a strongly built Wizard.

Compare that to this statement.

Wizard > Monk.

See how that works, it does not mean the Monk is as good as the Wizard.

If you want to compare this class to another class, compare it against an at will SLA user, like, fuck, a goddam conduit.

I personally find the Fiendish Conduit to be much weaker than most Tome classes, especially all the ones that use Combat feats.

Compare the level 5 character above to a level 5 Conduit.

A level 5 Invoker has:

1) Divinations
2) At will attack spells that are just sphere attack spells.
3) Dimension Door at will.
4) Wall of Stone.
5) Protection against 3 elements.
6) Haste the party.

A level 5 Conduit, the class Frank Trollman made years ago that is much weaker than any class in Races of War has:

1) Greater Teleport at will.
2) At will attack spells that are spheres.
3) Greater Teleport at will.
4) Immunity to two or so elements.

The Invoker brings haste to the party, and Divinations, and his attack spells are more versatile. And gets access to Wall of Stone four levels earlier.

A conduit is Greater Teleporting instead of DDing, and basically uses the same combat actions if he takes carnage or voracity sphere.

But if he chooses for example, Dominion, then he instead throws out weds at will. And that character is pretty much just as awesome.

And the Conduit suffers from extreme shaftedness relative to the rest of the Tome.

I mean fuck. Can you people stop whining about how it's a Wizard for five seconds and actually compare it's contributions to combat to a Samurai that insta kills things, or a Fighter that insta kills things, or a Monk that save or dies things multiple times a round?

It's combat actions are perfectly in line with Tome characters. It does not have access to most things that make Wizards awesome, including glitterdust.

tl;dr:

Stop saying "it's more powerful than a maximum power Wizard" or "It's stronger than other Tome classes" or "Too Powerful, I hate you." without backing that shit up with an actual comparison to actual classes that aren't too powerful.

If permanent haste for the group is too powerful, explain to me how you come to that conclusion by comparing the actual effects of the haste spell with the actual effects of some other class that has always on buffs for allies.

If being able to use Shadow Spray at will is too powerful explain how a Tome Conduit is not too powerful.

If DD at will at level 3 is broken why is Greater Teleport at will at level 5 or 1 not?

[Rejakor]

The Tome Samurai breaks things right in half with an ancestral scythe at lower levels. At higher levels, it breaks things in half a lot less.

A hell of a lot less. And by higher levels, I mean levels like '5' or '6'. And don't fucking go all roy on me and assume that every samurai has a tight battle jump and leap attack build that incorporates shield charge and Feral. Cause it doesn't, and they don't, and that's no different than saying 'all wizards are polymorph abusing incantatrixes'.

Also, you're missing the point. Entirely. You're saying 'If we say that the class only uses Haste and Fireball, it's a lot weaker than a really optimized cleric that uses Recitation, or a Conduit that takes a [Fiend] feat designed for NPCs or people with LA!' Bullshit. Get the fuck off your high horse and take a look at the class you've built. Yeah, it IS balanced if it's played slightly suboptimally and everyone else is playing twinked druids, twinked conduits, and twinked Tome melee classes using non-tome feats to get dozens of attacks on the charge all at +400 damage over any surface inside an antimagic field.

But, y'know, in a regular game with regular players it will be far more powerful! It takes much less skill to twink this class than it takes to twink any other class you've so far referenced! I don't even want to think about what this would be like with some of the non-class-specific cheese heaped on top (which you're assuming as standard for every other class that you compare it to).

By spending a half hour dumpster diving well-known lower level spell sources (which you fucking wink wink nudge nudge tell people to fucking do in the class itself) like trapsmith, bard, magewright, warmage[tome] et al, this class can do any archetype better than the class the archetype is named after. If it picks a generalist buffer role, using only sorc/wiz or cleric spells of the appropriate levels, yeah, that's balanced.

UNFORTUNATELY, NO-ONE WILL PLAY IT LIKE THAT. This is the erudite on speed. It is retardedly easy to make a cleric archer that OHKOs everything at far lower level than the cleric. You can do the same with a save or die expert. A better battlefield comptroller than the conjurer wizard. A better melee fighter than the fighter or the samurai. A better mobility and then bamrightinthekisser expert than the monk. A far better stealth and assassination expert than the assassin. Oh, and yeah, have a bunch of B/C, SoD and Blasty spells just cause you get some spheres and stuff. So whatever you decide to 'specialize' in (and you get to specialize all fucking day long) you always have something else to do.

However, i'm glad you changed mindpool to wis modifier. I have a feeling it was wis score before from this thread, and that is.. words. Bad. That is all the stuff I have a problem with up there, from LEVEL 1. You think you can't make a invincible gish with level 1 buffs? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. At lower levels it's almost easier, since shit doesn't have weird attacks that ignore defences and target your initiative modifier or ranks in appraise or something.

Personally speaking a Tome Conduit is quite a powerful class. However, if we count Domains (omg, fucking domains, so many fucking broken domains) as Spheres, your class gets as many Spheres as it does, and can cast the spells from them many more times than it can. Furthermore, your class can PERSIST those spells, for free, and at the same time it has a bunch of smoking-crack spells like suggestion as a cantrip and Lesser Planar Binding as a 1st level spell. Not to mention crazy shit written for crazy fucking classes like the Wu Jen that can be totally broken when used in combination with non-wu-jen spells.

Your class has class level mindpool spell slots. At level 7, it gets twice class level mindpool spell slots. At level 14, it gets something like 4 x class level mindpool spell slots. And I don't care, cause it's level 14.

And all that would be fine if you hadn't fucking specifically stated that it uses the lowest fucking version of the spell it can find 'ha ha'.

Oh yeah, and given it DIVINE METAMAGIC PERSIST, FOR FREE, FOR THE LULZ. I'd be fine playing a invoker that got 2 spheres, a domain, and my class level, then double class level, then four times class level, in sorcerer/wizard spells. I'd be like 'sweet, I can just shoot off shit'. But no. You had to make it the 'I stack all these buffs and now invincible I am' class. It could have been a cool 'I just keep casting allllll daaaaaaayyyyyy' class, whether it was a buffer or what, but NO. It has to be a power-trip la la free persistent spell class. Cause none of those are broken. Spelldancer. Incantatrix. Divine Metamagic. Bells? Ringing? THERE IS A PATTERN HERE.

Now I dunno if like Roy you play some kind of private super masturbatory games where everyone just cribs builds from the CO boards and competes to see whose epeen is bigger, but most people don't! So making a class that is a prepackaged CO board build is probably not the best thing to add to the Tomes! The idea is not to make 'most powerful class uses broken mechanics hur durr'. It's to make an interesting class that fits the power level of the fucking Tomes. Even Conduit is on the heavy hitting side of the Tomes, and that barely competes with your class due to a fucking [Fiend] feat that your goddamn class could take if it was Badtouched, so that doesn't goddamn count.

You want my fix for your broke-ass class? You're desperately attached to the maintenance slot mechanic? Fine. You get 2. Every 4 levels, this goes up by 1. That doesn't stop this class slapping on the minute/level buffs, but honestly, nothing will. And your mindpool? Yeah, it's based on class level. Save DCs can be from casting stat, but hey, now at least the guy can have an int higher than 8, right? Maybe a 10. Go 12, for roleplaying purposes. At 7th it can double class level. And then 14th it can quadruple! Wow! Power creep!

And yeah, the dumpster diving? No. Pick some lists. They pick from those lists. I don't care how many lists you pick, but they have to be sane ones. Don't like it? Make your own damn lists. Keep glitterdust and shit where it is, move crap like bigby's stupid hand down. Don't like that? Then it gets access to mindpool spells on the bard schedule. That's the only way to keep it from becoming insane, BECAUSE IT'S PICKING FROM THE 6TH LEVEL CASTING LISTS.

Love,

• -Rejakor

[Korwin]

If someone wanted to reduce maintenance and still let the Wisdom Mod. matter you could use:

• Half Wisdom Mod
• Half Wisdom Mod + X
• Something like X + Bonus Points like Bonus Spells (would need a table)

[Rejakor]

1 maintenance slot is equal to an 8th level spell at levels 1-2, a 9th level slot from levels 3-4 and a 10th level slot from levels 5-6. A limited use slot, can only be used for Persistent spells, but that's what it is. I have no problem with a 1st level character having an 8th level spell. That's fine. However, if you give a 1st level character a number of 8th level spell slots equal to half their wisdom, that character is going to be playing a wisdom race, and have at least an 18 base in their wis. And every feat is going to be 'Extra Maintenance Slot'. That isn't some kind of hidden trick that involves stuff from other splats, it's right there in the class. You cannot link an exponential power multiplier to a stat. It should always be a viable choice to have a wizard with 16 int, or a fighter with 16 str. If you link maintenance slots to ANYTHING that can be scaled up, the player is going to FUCKING SCALE THAT UP. Because maintenance slots are exponential in their power. So the more you have, the more they break the game. Giving the player ANY WAY to get more, other than by leveling in the class, ruins any kind of power balance you've set up between the three core features of the class, mindpool, maintenance slots, and sphere/domains.

[Korwin]

You cannot link an exponential power multiplier to a stat. It should always be a viable choice to have a wizard with 16 int, or a fighter with 16 str.

What are you talking about?
For an Wizard Int will be as high as he can get it (if PB: depends on how much he thinks he can ignore the others Stats, which Lvl. is the start, etc.)

Same for an primary Str. Char...

And yes you can choose to gimp the Char (venerable Fighter with starting Str and Dex of 8) but then you could do that to the Invoker too.

If we are talking D&D then Stats are and should be important.


Is the maintenance pool to high? Then twink the multiplicator. 1/2 Wis Mod to much? Use 1/3...
Or write an fucking arbitary table.
+1 Mod gives +1 Maintenance
+3 Mod gives +2 Maintenance*
+6 Mod gives +3 Maintenance*

*not cumulative

[Kaelik]

Okay Rejatard, I'm going to try to sort your stupidity into categories, and address them based on that, because your epic spiel of retardation is not really sensible in any organized fashion.

So let's start with:

A) You can't read.

1) The class never had a maintenance 1 of wisdom score, and it's not wisdom mod now, it's wisdom mod or level, whichever is lower. So yeah, you can't read worth shit, and your are dumb.

2)

That is all the stuff I have a problem with up there, from LEVEL 1. You think you can't make a invincible gish with level 1 buffs? HAHAHAHAHAHAHA. At lower levels it's almost easier, since shit doesn't have weird attacks that ignore defences and target your initiative modifier or ranks in appraise or something.

I know for a fact you can't make an invincible gish from level 1. You get one spell. Uno. One.

You can be like a Cleric who casts Magic Weapon every fight, or you can be like a Wizard who casts One Color Spray each fight. Or you can be like a guy who wears armor and casts magic missile every round.

Those are your options. Read the fucking class. You can't be an invincible gish from level 1, even if you can try to go cleric archer but not as well later.

3)

at the same time it has a bunch of smoking-crack spells like suggestion as a cantrip and Lesser Planar Binding as a 1st level spell.

Hey, I bet if you read the actual class, you'll find out why this is not the case.

4)

By spending a half hour dumpster diving well-known lower level spell sources (which you fucking wink wink nudge nudge tell people to fucking do in the class itself) like trapsmith, bard, magewright, warmage[tome] et al,

Yeah, I did mention that right in the class. And I did fucking use the trapsmith list for like half the spells in the mindpool of my example character that I just compared to Conduit. It's almost like I took those lists into account when I motherfucking balanced the class.

5) See the name on the side of this post? It says "Kaelik" not "Roy" so the next time you feel like addressing half your post to Roy, you should go post it somewhere he's going to read it. Kay dumbass.

B) You don't know shit about the Tomes, and therefore have no place commenting on classes designed for Tome balance:

1)

Conduit that takes a [Fiend] feat designed for NPCs or people with LA!' Bullshit.

A Fiend feat designed for people with LA? Are you fucking retarded? All Fiendish Conduits by definition get bonus Fiend Feats. They get one as a class feature at level 4, and they get another one every time they gain Expert Access in a sphere, aka, level 5.

The Tomes explicitly reject the very idea of LA on the face of it, and you are telling me that you think the entire Tome of Fiends is meant only for people with LA? Can you fucking read? They have a feat in there that allows anyone of any race at all (a subset which includes all non La races) the ability to take Fiend feats.

2)

The Tome Samurai breaks things right in half with an ancestral scythe at lower levels. At higher levels, it breaks things in half a lot less.

A hell of a lot less. And by higher levels, I mean levels like '5' or '6'.

Did you miss the Combat feats part of the class? It's in the same thread, and the Samurai is explicitly given the exact motherfucking combat feats as bonus feats at some levels.

A level 6 Tome Samurai has a 100% success rate against a EL 6 same game test. You know what that means? It means that you can pick any goddam CR 6 you want, and the Samurai wins.

Technically, we don't use PC classes in most of them, because it takes more work, and obviously things like other Tome Samurais, or Tome Fighters, Or Tome Barbarians, Or Tome Monks, or Druids, or Wizards or even Conduits, though with significantly less success rate than the above examples, could kill that bitch up to half the time. Maybe even more if your specific one happened to optimize Init.

This holds true when you get higher too. A Samurai can fuck people up with crazy damage, force them to make a save vs stun, and if you build it one hilarious way, just straight up shoot 30+ arrows into someone each turn. In addition to negating 5 or 6 spells each round as well.

3)

Yeah, it IS balanced if it's played slightly suboptimally and everyone else is playing twinked druids, twinked conduits, and twinked Tome melee classes using non-tome feats to get dozens of attacks on the charge all at +400 damage over any surface inside an antimagic field.

Did you look at my fucking example? I just built an optimized Invoker. And then compared it to a Conduit. And yeah, it's a little better, as it should, and is intended to be, because the Conduit is frankly, not that great compared to what most Tome characters have.

The "twinking" I demonstrated on the Conduit comparison was a) using bonus Fiend feats to take Fiend feats. b) picking a sphere from the list of spheres.

4)

It is retardedly easy to make a cleric archer that OHKOs everything at far lower level than the cleric. You can do the same with a save or die expert. A better battlefield comptroller than the conjurer wizard. A better melee fighter than the fighter or the samurai. A better mobility and then bamrightinthekisser expert than the monk.

a) if it's so easy to do that, how about you present an example, since that's what I explicitly asked you to do in my last post, that you just ignored like a retard.

b) You can't do any of those things better than those classes. I already showed how Cleric Archers are vastly superior to Invoker Archers.

An invoker has fewer BC spells than a Wizard, worse BC spells than a Wizard, and BC spells take up maintenance slots. At level fucking 1, You can only have one Colory Spray going at a time, just like a Wizard has one per fight. At level 10, you each have a bunch of defensive buffs up, and yours are slightly better than his, but he has more, and as soon as you drop a Cloudkill, you lose a buff. Drop a second Cloudkill, lose a second buff.

You can throw out save or dies, great, so can everyone else, like, Monks/Fighters/Barbarians/Samurai/Wizards/Druids/Clerics, and you can't even match the Fighters DCs when overcharging.

You obviously don't know shit about Tome Fighters, or Monks. Since you are comparing basically one active spell effect (something like "Haste" or "Divine Power (aka, well, I catch up to what a Fighter already has)" or "Enlarge Person/Righteous Might") against a fighter class feature, like for example, a Combat feat. Or the ability to prevent your opponents from tacking actions, no save no SR.

And Monks, fuck. A Monk at level 1 throws out up to 4 melee save or dies, and up to 2-3 ranged save or dies each round. As you scale up in level, the save or dies get better, and they get more attacks.

A good combat round for an Invoker is a Enervation followed by a quickened ShadowSpray, and good round for a monk is forcing 3 save or dies against anyone within line of sight.

5)

Even Conduit is on the heavy hitting side of the Tomes, and that barely competes with your class due to a fucking [Fiend] feat that your goddamn class could take if it was Badtouched, so that doesn't goddamn count.

You are a retard. A conduit is not the heavy hitting side unless you've never read RoW. Monk/Fighter/Samurai/Barbarian/Knight/Every community class, is the heavy side. Assassin/Conduit/Jester/Summoner are the dead middle (aka PHB Rogue level comparatively). And the other stuff doesn't really get used.

And yeah, this class could take the feat, and it would then not matter that the trapsmith list has DD as second level, because it would not use DD, and it would use the feat. And so we'd have the exact same character, with one fewer feat (It's already an Aasimar for the Wisdom, so no need to badtouch) (although, technically, because it doesn't get bonus Fiend feats as part of the class, it would have to wait until level 6) and 2 more mindpool levels to spend on something else. And then it would still be about as good as a Conduit, but slightly better in most respects, as fucking designed.

C) Your actual balance concerns, as greatly interpreted by me, after attempting to suss them out of your retarded rant that only made me hate you for talking so much shit based on so little (read: none) knowledge of the Tomes.

1) "Waah! Persisted spells." Hey dumb shit, most classes already come with Persisted spells. The fucking Summoner gets a Persisted spell as a Cantrip. Spells with a Duration of "hour per level" are already persisted by level 8.

When an Invoker uses up one of his 3 maintenance slots to keep running "Swift Fly" he is not casting an 8th level spell. He is casting, at absolute best, a 4th level spell. And he's using up a valuable commodity to do so. That's the point. Keeping the best AC buff going at level 1 is not a 7th level spell, it's fucking Mage Armor. It's like being a Warmage instead of a Wizard, because you can't use Color Spray and you have a free chain shirt which is what the Warmage is wearing.

Maintenance slots have opportunity costs, and the fact is that a mid level Wizard can and often will have many more defensive buffs up than an Invoker. Likewise, a Cleric will have more defensive buffs active than the Invoker has spells fucking known. And a Druid only needs wildshape alone to count for like eighteen buffs, when compared to anything the Invoker can use.

2) "You can do X better than [person who specializes in X]." No you can't. That solve your problem? Make an actual example. Try it out against a Tome level class that actually specializes in X.

3) "Stats shouldn't matter, and definitely shouldn't be maxxed on a casting class!" Fuck you, you obviously don't want to play D&D, go find another game. That's explicitly the paradigm that D&D uses, get over it.

4) "Dumpster diving off other lists is teh bad!" No really, I took into account those lists. The fact that every spell active counts off of a limited pool, and every spell known counts off of a limited number known makes most spells just plain not as good when used by an invoker. Instantaneous attack spells are the best actual attack spell, and most of those are single target. Yes, Shadowspray at will is awesome, but not any more awesome than a single Glitterdust that fight, or a Shadow Spray at will from a Conduit, or a Monk forcing two saves against "no actions" each round.

[Mask_De_H]

No kaelik, you are the retards.

and then kaelik wrote a rant.

Seriously though, we've given advice, we've pointed out the faults and possible misgivings within the class, and you've disregarded the best ideas you've come up with basically for the lulz. At this point the only useful recourse is poking and laughing at you like the 'tards of old.

[Kaelik]

you've disregarded the best ideas you've come up with basically for the lulz.

This sentence repeats this sentence.

You've pointed to flaws that don't exist. Well, Rejakor has pointed to flaws that don't exist because he can't read the class, you haven't pointed to anything.

Again, if these flaws are so gapingly terrible, and the class is so unbalanced, how about one person, anyone at all, anyone, just do what I fucking asked and give me a single concrete example of an Invoker they actually build that is so powerful it puts a X to shame, were X is a Tome level class, and not a shitty one like Fiendish Brute, but a real one like Barbarian.

But since literally only uber has even presented an actual character, and that was illegal even for version two, which is much stronger than version 3, I'm forced to assume that you guys can't actually build an example character that is too powerful, so you whine about how Magic Weapon all day is a level 7 spell.

[ubernoob]

I'm against rewarding dumpster diving in general. That's my biggest complaint. Obviously you disagree on that design premise, so no point arguing.

[Kaelik]

I'm against rewarding dumpster diving in general. That's my biggest complaint. Obviously you disagree on that design premise, so no point arguing.

Indeed, and Rejakor and to a lesser extent you dislike the idea of maxxed wisdom for a wisdom class as a design goal. But I think it's inherent to D&D, and just fine.

But since 99% of the criticism of the class is something along the lines of: "It's way better than X, and super broken." not "I think you shouldn't reward X." I want to see one person actually present an example of the class being way more powerful than X.

So far only you have even tried, and that was before the current incarnation of the class.

At this point, I wonder if Mask or Rejakor has even read the current version of the class, since they demonstrate no knowledge of the actual balance point.

[ubernoob]

I'm against rewarding dumpster diving in general. That's my biggest complaint. Obviously you disagree on that design premise, so no point arguing.

Indeed, and Rejakor and to a lesser extent you dislike the idea of maxxed wisdom for a wisdom class as a design goal. But I think it's inherent to D&D, and just fine.

But since 99% of the criticism of the class is something along the lines of: "It's way better than X, and super broken." not "I think you shouldn't reward X." I want to see one person actually present an example of the class being way more powerful than X.

So far only you have even tried, and that was before the current incarnation of the class.

At this point, I wonder if Mask or Rejakor has even read the current version of the class, since they demonstrate no knowledge of the actual balance point.

The biggest balance problems are at low levels due to grabbing shit before it's level appropriate for full casters. I'm fairly certain that a warlock being able to toss down both EBT and Solid fog before the wizard even gets EBT is a problem. But then again, I'm assuming that EBT exists at level 3 or less on some silly list because I can't be assed to dumpster dive.

The cleric archer complaint is another one, but frankly the persist spell feat is retarded on many levels and this class should be banned in any campaign that doesn't allow persist spell. Obviously I'm taking into account that nobody would ever use persist unless they had free metemagic from some source.

But yeah, I don't give a shit about arguing balance at this point because the idea the class is based on is one I fundamentally disagree on.

[For Valor]

-*pokes head up, completely ignoring the ensuing flame war*-

Free cantrips and orisons? I like free cantrips and orisons!

1) Would this class use ASF? I mean, the standard 'lock does, and even though this guy doesn't "Invoke" in the same way... well, I was just wondering if I could throw him in Full Plate and not have to use Mage Armor.

2) I laugh at Owl's Insight and the RNG comment.

3) I kind of see the point in requiring an Invoker to watch the Spell being cast, but the whole thing about not being able to understand it via scroll or spellbook (you said scroll earlier, and I'm applying this to the spellbook too)... well, why not? It makes sense for a decently intelligent (or after 2nd level, decently wise) Invoker to sit down, study a spellbook, and walk away with an understanding of how the spells fundamentally work. It'd need a Spellcraft check, as with watching a Spell being cast, but could work similarly.

4) I saw something about prestige classes come up, and I really didn't understand your response to it (kinda because I'm stupid), but could you tell me how prestige classes would work with this class/IF they would work with this class?

5) Would Overcharge stack if you burned 2 slots? One of my players disagrees with me on this point, 'cause he thinks it does stack. Please tell him off.

6) And is it just me, or do Maintenance andMaintenance 2 sound like REALLY dumb names? It'd sound better if you added the Maintenance effect to Mindpool, made Maintenance 2 into "Open Mind", and changed "Open Mind" and "Acquisitionary Nature" so that the names relate to each other.

"Magic Mind" and "Greater Magic Mind".
"Empowered Mindpool" and "Mystic Mindpool"
"Mindpool Expansion" and "Mindpool Explication"
etc...

but that's 100% flavor, so it's not necessary.