The Gaming Den

Grasping for ideas, what do you expect out of a Kamen Rider / Super Sentai themed class?

So far I can think of:
* Designate Opponent and Armored In Life as pre-req
* Teamwork: May ignore the part of the Knightly Code that says you can't accept Aid Another.
* Increasingly elaborate and powerful armors and weapons.
* A list of optional abilities and special attacks
* Animal like constructs as companion, become bigger and can transform.
* Some special powers usable ONLY if you have an ally with this prestige class as well, up to whoever has the lowest levels.

* Some special powers usable ONLY if you have an ally with this prestige class as well, up to whoever has the lowest levels.

Never this ever.

Psychic Robot wrote:

* Some special powers usable ONLY if you have an ally with this prestige class as well, up to whoever has the lowest levels.

Never this ever.

+1

Psychic Robot wrote:

* Some special powers usable ONLY if you have an ally with this prestige class as well, up to whoever has the lowest levels.

Never this ever.

Allow me to correct:

* Some special powers get increased bonuses/effects if you have an ally with this prestige class as well, up to whoever has the lowest levels.

Still not that, ever, or it creates the Favored (Blah) Bonus balance problem.

TavishArtair wrote:Still not that, ever, or it creates the Favored (Blah) Bonus balance problem.

Adding a +3 or so to an otherwise balanced character will not destroy balance, and added effects via special teamwork is cool as long as the extra abilities are not integral to the use of the class.

I was only thinking combining weapons to make super guns or combining construct companions to make megazords.

If that's dumb though, yeah, I can figure. Anything you WOULD add?

God_of_Awesome wrote:I was only thinking combining weapons to make super guns or combining construct companions to make megazords.

If that's dumb though, yeah, I can figure. Anything you WOULD add?

It'd be way more awesome if being Red Ranger meant that you can toss out team colors to the rest of your allies, with no expenditure of class levels on their part, so that they too get their own spandex, weirdass helmet, and magic weapon. Or megazord, whatever. Just, you know, you would initiate the combo attacks as leader (and have several other powers besides).

The flavour quote had better be "How dare you call yourselves the Prism Rangers when there are only five of you!"

And I too feel it would be better for Red Ranger (or whatever) to be the class, and it lets you give lesser, colour-coded powers out to your allies.

I call shotgun on being Violet Prism Ranger.

Koumei wrote:
I call shotgun on being Violet Prism Ranger.

Dibs on Blue.

By the way, calling shotgun is to see who will sit in the front passenger seat and therefore inapplicable to this process. Hurry, hurry, hurry!

Koumei wrote: Dibs on Blue.

Curse you!

I call Green Ranger, then.

Fine, dibs on Violet.

Damn, I wanted Green. Fine, I dibs the floating head. Or that fucking robot.

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Does this mean that you are normally little more than a Commoner, then suddenly transform into a Power Ranger at the start of every fight? Possibly making the rest of the party also transform into other Rangers?

Because that sounds terrible. And hilarious.

Parthenon wrote: Does this mean that you are normally little more than a Commoner, then suddenly transform into a Power Ranger at the start of every fight? Possibly making the rest of the party also transform into other Rangers?

Because that sounds terrible. And hilarious.

Agreed.

I'd play one.

But have the Power Ranger form give a boost in physical stats, I think...

I call Pink. No, I will not wear a skirt, nor breast-plate. (Kilt maybe) I just like the colour.

I do like the concept of the class essentially being the leader/key member of the prism party, and then handing out magic pants of different colours to the rest of the party. And combo attacks. I'd make having an initiative bonus from a feat to be a prerequisite, for flavour reasons.

Alright, that brings up a couple interesting questions.

Should the Henshin gain a color every level or get 'em all in one go? How many colors? Should he himself always be red or can he choose for, say, blue to be the color of the leader? Should all the different Henshin have the same theme or should it be set-up so you can have Elemental Henshin, Planar Henshin, Schools Of Magic Henshin, etc?

God_of_Awesome wrote:Alright, that brings up a couple interesting questions.

Should the Henshin gain a color every level or get 'em all in one go? How many colors? Should he himself always be red or can he choose for, say, blue to be the color of the leader? Should all the different Henshin have the same theme or should it be set-up so you can have Elemental Henshin, Planar Henshin, Schools Of Magic Henshin, etc?

Well, classically, you get things like "Team Leader Henshin" who shouts orders to the rest...

So you're looking at a TVTropes classic Five-Man Band.

The Leader
His best friend, the Lancer
The Big Guy
The Smart Guy
and the Chick.

http://www.rpgamer.com/games/mario/smrp ... art001.gif

The leader provides benefits and shouts orders to the rest and gives flanking bonuses and stuff.

The Lancer gets cool abilities which means people are justified in liking him more than the leader.

The big guy gets face-smashing.

The Smart Guy gets the magic.

And the chick gets healing/support and, in these modern times, bombs to shove down the neck of anyone who thinks she's somehow wimpy.

I disagree about some of that.

I think you should get all the colours at once, and that it shouldn't be fixed as to which colour is which.

And unless you create the party around the theme those like Elements, Schools of Magic or Planes aren't going to work. If you do try to do so then you'll have things like the barbarian getting Divination because someone else already took Evocation or trying to fit three humans across different planes at random.

What I think is that you should dig up one of those lists of like 10 or so roles from discussions about actually good roles, and give each PC one of these roles. The choosing colours can come after choosing the roles to make sure each PC gets one the player is fine with. Spending three minutes searching around the Den for some I found this list which should be enough to use. You could then give colours to these.

• Does single target damage.
• Clears mooks.
• Buffs allies.
• Curses opponents.
• Heals friends.
• Soaks damage.
• Denies enemy actions.

So, you then take each of these, possibly a non-magical, an arcane and a divine version for some, and give them all say 9 pretty generic scaling encounter effects at the same rate as spell levels and let them use two every encounter.

So, for example, you could take the curses opponents one and make a non-magical version (taking into account the fact that I'm shit at this) like:

     Curses Opponent Melee

• 1: Automatically trip one creature within range as an attack action.
  At level 5 automatically trip all enemies within range as an attack action.
  At level 9 also trip and disarm all within range + 5ft.
• 3: Feint an opponent making them lose their Dex bonus for until the start of your next turn as an attack action.
  At level 7 also let everyone make an AoO against them at the same time.
  At level 11 make their AC 0 and lose Dex bonus until the start of your next turn as a standard action.
• 5: Give one target within range a -2 to AC and all saves for one round.
  At level 9 this increases to -4 for two rounds.
  At level 13 they autofail all saves for one round.
• 7: Give all enemies within range a 25% miss chance for three rounds.
  At level 11 give all enemies within range a 50% miss chance for the rest of the encounter.
• Etc.

And so on. At this point you could decide that this role now has the Green colour and give it to the PC that could use it best. While this does require 10-15 lists, it is still better than 3-4 lists for each element, plane, and whatever other categories you choose, then requiring creating new lists if you come up with a new theme.

That way you have lots of different roles that can be fitted to the party rather than trying to fit the party into the roles like Maxus suggests. The Henshin leader can then fit into any group rather than the group having to be messed about with to fit into a chosen theme. This means that they will also be more likely to use the powers rather than just getting a numerical bonus or having powers which get ignored.

Even if you ignore the idea about having 9 scaling abilities then you should still have the 10-15 roles since it can apply to more parties and doesn't require creating new things for a new theme.

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Unfortunately I then come up blank on multi-PC attacks since it is difficult to come up with a way for the bard, wizard, paladin and druid to all work together to do something. Maybe just have five or so pretty generic attacks such as all posing in a chevron and then making a 2 square wide lightning bolt doing 2d6+1 per level damage come out of one end.

But you definitely want it so that at the level you start fighting huge dragons you can transform into a huge robot to fight it.

I'd handle it so the Henshin Red Leader can transform and do the whole Marshall bit where he gives bonuses and support to everyone else.

And then hand out powers to people, based on some roles--bonuses to attack/damage, spellcasting (maybe some bonuses to caster level and use of magic items and the occasional free spell or Doublecast or something), healing (group heals, next).