The Gaming Den

I'm working on a 10-level base class, but I'm having some difficulty with the higher-level abilities. I thought I might as well post what I've got so far and see what people's opinions are. There's probably still some typos from the sections I copied from Fiendish Brute, but I will take care of those in the second draft once I know what the class should get at level 9.

Hunger Mage
"Enough? Hardly, we're never full."

Many magic-users choose to focus their potential into a particular area. Though the majority specialize in broader themes such as particular elements or schools of arcana, some choose extremely specific areas of study. Among these, a few become fascinated with a link between negative energy and hunger that is particularly evident in a number of types of undead. This draws out abilities surprisingly reminiscent, but subtly different from those of the beings they study and a method of spellcasting without relying upon the trappings traditional mages often require to invoke their powers.

Alignment: If negative energy is Evil, you have to be non-good to take any levels in Hunger Mage. Nothing bad happens to a Hunger mage if she becomes Good, though.

Hit Die: d8

Class Skills: As Thief-Acrobat, plus Spellcraft

Skills/Level: 6 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Full (1/1)
Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Good; Will: Bad

Level, Benefit

1 Life Eater, Ironbelly, Uncanny Celerity +5
2 Natural Weapons, Natural Armor, Voracity Sphere: Basic Access
3 Climbing Claws, Feast or Famine, Uncanny Celerity +10
4 Voracity Sphere: Advanced Access, Magic Claws
5 Necrotic Spew, Poison Tongue, Uncanny Celerity +15
6 Venom Sphere: Basic Access, Pounce
7 Souleater, Uncanny Celerity +20
8 Death Sphere: Basic Access, _________
9 _______, _______ ,Uncanny Celerity +25
10 Hungry Void, Deathless Hunger

All of the following are Class Features of the Hunger Mage class:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Hunger Mages are proficient with simple weapons and armor spikes, and aren't inherently proficient with any armor.

Life Eater: The Hunger Mage's teeth grow tough and sharp, and she gains a bite attack which deals damage appropriate for her size. This is a secondary natural weapon. When she deals damage to a living target with this attack, she instantly heals HP equal to half the physical damage dealt.

Ironbelly: The Hunger Mage is immune to ingested poisons and diseases.

Uncanny Celerity: At every odd level, the Hunger Mage's base speed increases by 5 feet.

Natural Weapons: A level 2 Hunger Mage has 2 claw attacks, one attached to each arm (or its two front legs if it is a quadruped, if it has no limbs at all it grows two vestigial arms that have claws at the end). These claws are natural weapons and inflict damage normal for the creature's size.

Natural Armor: A level 2 Hunger Mage has a natural armor bonus of 3 plus its class level. So a 7th level Fiendish Brute has a natural armor bonus of +10.

Climbing Claws: A level 3 Hunger Mage grows claws on two more limbs, typically the legs on a biped. These function exactly like the ones on her hands, but are Rake attacks. The claws are also exceptionally suited to climbing, and the Hunger Mage gets a Climb speed equal to half her base speed.

Feast or Famine At level 3, the Hunger Mage never takes penalties from starvation, and can go without sustenance indefinitely. However, she is never truly full, and can eat a theoretically infinite amount, as most of what she consumes is sucked into the Negative Energy Plane. Her mouth can stretch unnaturally wide and she can unhinge her jaw to swallow larger masses. Treat the Hunger Mage as one size larger for determining the damage of her bite attack, and give it an Enhancement Bonus equal to 1/3 the Hunger Mage's character level, rounding up. The bite attack also has the Ghost Touch special property.

Spheres: The Hunger Mage gains Basic Access to the Voracity Sphere at level 2, the Venom Sphere at level 6, and the Death Sphere at level 8. The Voracity Sphere upgrades to Advanced Access at level 4.

Magic Claws: A level 4 Hunger Mage receives an Enhancement bonus to her claw attacks equal to 1/3 her character level, rounding up. The claw attacks also have the Ghost Touch special property.

Necrotic Spew: At level 5, the Hunger Mage can pull some of the mass she has consumed back from the Negative Energy Plane. This manifests as a breath weapon that can be used once every 3 rounds. It goes out as a 20 foot cone that deals 1d6 damage per character level Reflex save (DC is Constitution-based) for half damage). Half of this damage is Acid, and half is Negative Energy. The Hunger Mage may also trade her bite attack for a ranged touch attack out to Short range that deals half the damage of the breath weapon.

Poison Tongue: A level 5 Hunger Mage has a tongue that drips paralytic poison. This allows her to trade her bite attack for a touch attack that deals 2d4 Dexterity damage if the opponent fails a Fortitude save (DC is Constitution-based). Her bite attack also carries the poison, but it only deals 2 Dexterity damage on a failed save. As a swift action, the Hunger Mage may lick 2 of her claws, applying the poison to them (2 Dexterity damage on a failed Save) until the beginning of her next turn.

Pounce: At level 6, the Hunger Mage gains the Pounce special ability.

Souleater: At level 7, the Hunger Mage applies a Negative Level to whoever she hits with her bite attack.

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Hungry Void: The Hunger Mage's connection to the Negative Energy plane is so strong at level 10 that she can act as a portal there. Once every 3 rounds, she can open her mouth and attempt to pull everything in a 60-foot cone in. [rules]

Deathless Hunger: If killed, a living level 10 Hunger Mage may opt to rise as a Ghoul in one hour (so long as the body is more or less intact) or appear as a Swordwraith in a random point on the Negative Energy Plane in one minute.

EDIT 1: Changed Class Skills, fixed ability index typo and added a placeholder ability, fixed minor typos in some abilities.

EDIT 2: Added ghost touch to natural weapons, changed spheres, changed saves and upped BAB to encourage [Combat] feats.

I'm still trying to come up with some abilities for level 9. Telekinesis becomes available at this level, and I was thinking about giving it out as some kind of supernatural ability with some arbitrary special requirement to activate. Not sure how well that would fit the theme, though.

Froglike extendo-tongue.

15 foot reach. Potential for grappling people with your tongue. Swinging from the rafters. I like it.

Discussed the class with Akula a bit. Some proposed changes:

BAB: Full (1/1)
To encourage the use of [Combat] feats

Saves: Fortitude: Good; Reflex: Good; Will: Bad

Move Deathless Hunger to at least a level earlier, come up with a bigger transformational capstone.

Move Basic Access to Voracity to level 2, and upgrade it to Advanced at level 4.

Maybe give Enhanced Sphere access if you don't already have it?

Planeshift 1/day, but if you respawn on the Negative Energy Plane, it doesn't become available for at least a day or so.

Ghost touch Natural Weapons

Take away need to sleep at some point?

Allow entrance to Fiendish Classes

Negative Energy damage dice added to claws or natural attacks in general.
Fast Healing 1 at the same time so you don't claw yourself.

Jump bonus? Possibly lifted from Tome monk?

Extend poison duration, possibly with a bonus for applying it last round?

Perhaps make the direct tongue attack Fort save for half, rather than complete negation.
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I'm thinking that the closest balance points are the Monk and the Fiendish Brute.

What about a type change at some point? it seems it fairly naturally segue into stuff like Soul Eater, which requires non-humanoid, and making it outsider would allow access to fiend classes.

But really Soul Eater's the only reason I suggest that.


Hmm... something that comes to mind is the M&M power "Matter Eater", it makes you immune to all things ingested, and allows you to literally eat anything, actually taking bites out of even arbitrarium. So maybe at high level Iron Belly becomes "nothing you ingest can harm you" and the bite becomes adamantium to ignore hardness<20?

Prehensile Tongue: At level 6, the Hunger Mage's tongue grows dramatically, to the point where it can function as a prehensile tentacle with a reach 5 feet longer than the Hunger Mage's normal melee reach. Due to the growing void inside of her, the tongue can still inexplicably be pulled back into the mouth to the point where it doesn't seem to take up more space than a normal tongue (extending or retracting the tongue is a Swift Action. While extended, the Hunger Mage cannot make Bite attacks). The tongue can be used to deliver the Hunger Mage's Poison Tongue attack, make unarmed strikes, or grapple opponents.

Barbed Tongue At level 7, the Hunger Mage's tongue changes further, extending another 5 feet (for a total reach of 15 feet for a human Hunger Mage) in length and growing claws similar to those of a mohrg on the end. Mechanically, this functions like the Hunger Mage's other claw attacks, but it can always deliver tongue poison as if freshly coated and has the Improved Grab ability. The tongue is now strong and flexible enough to support the Hunger Mage's weight, and the claws on the end can dig into stone strongly enough that her weight won't pull them out.

EDIT:

True Omnivore: [level 5 or 6, expand dietary options, ignore Hardness / DR]

EDIT 2:

Incarnate Void: A level 10 Hunger Mage is a (debateably) living portal. [Become an outsider, give the area around you the Minor Negative-Dominant planar trait, Plane Shift to or from the Negative Energy Plane]

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No, it is not. The idea was to have something intermediate between Fiendish Brute and Conduit, but with a specific theme and more of a hit-and-run emphasis. Since True Fiend looked a little too weak for a balance point to aim for, I started with Fiendish Brute, took out the ability boosts, added three spheres, and threw in 1 or 2 abilities at each level.

Since I posted the class, I have gotten many suggestions for new things to add, and am currently in the process of putting together a pile of abilities. Some of these may turn into optional feats later on.

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I'm not even going to address how silly it is that you hand out three spheres (one with advanced access) on a full bab, scaling AC, 5 natural attack pouncer class. So yeah, gunna assume the sphere thing was just a typo and that you aren't that retarded.

Originally, it was 3/4 BAB and 3 spheres with Basic access. I haven't even looked at the natural armor bonus I copy-pasted, but the intent is for the PC to always have light armor, since ghouls don't wear leather.

Now, if you'd like I'll rewrite it after I get home from dinner. The point is just to create a class based around eating people, right?

More or less, yes. And thank you, I'd love to see someone else's take on the concept.

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Thank you. Skimmed through the class, and I can certainly see some things I should do differently with the Hunger Mage. The natural armor is certainly getting changed. I am also looking at moving all the early claw abilities up a level so that you get a permanent Climb speed after the mage gets Spider Climb. The rake attacks are getting replaced with a grapple bonus.

This is looking like it will for a very entertaining "evil ghoul cult" subplot. There should be a very visible distinction between the abilities of low, mid-, and high-ranking enemies.

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Yes, but I like giving PCs the option to pick up the tricks of the NPCs they encounter. This way, the Ghoul Cult of Saltmarsh and the Wardens of Castle Frostfang (Shivrelen PrC I posted earlier) feel more like unique organizations with special magic (though I often keep the classes general enough to reuse elsewhere), and if a player wants to turn one into a cohort or try dabbling in their flavor of phlebotonium for a while, it stays level-appropriate for a while and doesn't involve stapling on a template for moar power right now.

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I play things a bit differently. The players often recruit a couple of dozen allies, and combat is often at least partially handwaved. If the player controlled group is a warband of around 30 people, no one person needs to be enormously versatile. PCs might spend the entire battle just directing the warmage, archers, and spearmen.

EDIT:
Note to self: work on a transformational water mage class next. Give regeneration and ooze and/or elemental types eventually.