The Gaming Den

I've been invited to a game to play this January by a rather lenient DM (read: might allow homebrew) and so I was looking to capitalize on the rare chance by playing a homebrew class--specifically one based on the WoF mechanic that's been tossed around here for so long, but only a few people have tested. Thus, this thread is primarly a request directed towards people like Josh asking for samples from their test runs, but is also directed towards any like-minded brewers who would be willing to write up something 5 levels-ish that wouldn't suck in dungeoncrawling.

In absence of that, I'm also able to write things, but I'm awful at homebrewing because I'll sit and stare at a blank page for hours without any insight. So if someone, in their great benevolence, could draft something like 4 ability descriptions from a themed wheel section, I'd be able to brew something up that isn't terrible.

Is CmwYCPHtC the name of an Elder God?

Grek wrote:Is CmwYCPHtC the name of an Elder God?

Cure my wartastic Yeast-covered personally tenderized cock...atrice.

Either that or I shall wait till the stars are right.

It stands for Chaos magic which you Can't Hope to Possibly Comprehend. It's something someone in Josh Kablack's playgroup used to refer to WoF.

I much prefer Cynic's version.

Cynic wrote:Cure my wartastic Yeast-covered personally tenderized cock...atrice.

Ew.

...You Lost Me wrote:In absence of that, I'm also able to write things, but I'm awful at homebrewing because I'll sit and stare at a blank page for hours without any insight. So if someone, in their great benevolence, could draft something like 4 ability descriptions from a themed wheel section, I'd be able to brew something up that isn't terrible.

What level are you starting at?

If you're starting at a sufficiently high level (like 7 or so) you can kitbash together the Green Arrow (chart-based) WoF or you can also do the Escalating Threat (whereupon higher roll = better attack) WoF using just the spell lists of a wizard/sorcerer. Preferably backed up by something like the Spell Compendium or Complete Mage.

If you MUST have something involving Martial Powers, you could also use the Book of Nine Swords. Not the shitty default Crusader class. But a class that has access to all nine of the disciplines. The problem with that is still A.) You're a Martial Character. Your shelf life is ~12 levels with careful min-maxxing instead of the 8 of the fighter, but still.
B.) Most of the powers are still complete crap. Even if you were allowed to cherry pick from every list your WoF bag of powers woudn't look that dissimilar from a Warblade.

Would there be interest in Tomeing up a Crusader variant? It's basically on a WoF system already, it's just really clumsily written. I mean, it has stances that it can't get because they come online at levels they don't learn new stances, a card shuffling system that doesn't give enough variety, and are all shunted towards White Raven in order to not suck monkey butt. But the class could probably be cleaned up into something pretty decent with a modicrum of work. I could do that if there is interest.

-Username17

I am *always* interested in new Tome-type material.

While I'm still willing, a tome-style crusader would be wonderful to see. Anything would be better than the mentality of "hey you're level 8, how would you like to see a nice ability from 7 levels ago?", but your result would probably be twenty times better than my flailing.

That'd be cool, Frank. Having a workable WoF and Weeaboo Fightan Magic class is always worth it.

FrankTrollman wrote:Would there be interest in Tomeing up a Crusader variant?

Actually, yes, I would also be someone who'd be interested in seeing such a creation. Hell, I even made a pseudo-Tome based Crusader, for use in an encounter in my campaign. Though it was moreso its features that I upgraded, getting them earlier, better progression of Delayed damage ability, 1-9th maneuvers per each Character level so 9th =9th leve maneuvers, using other Tome classes that had similar abilities for comparison, like (Tome Barbarians reroll per failed save, or Soulborn's Soul Smite).

Oh, and what Mask_De_H said, the cooler fighter type options we can get, the better.

You Lost Me, what level are you playing at? Approximately at least

Yeah, a tomey Crusader sounds awesome.

Given there are other things I didn't really like/find interesting that the Tome made interesting to me, I'd like to see the Crusader done Tome style.

Besides, the inane arguments we're having here show that we really do need some new Tome content to distract people a bit.

Count me in.

Our group seems to have taken the stance that only Tome warrior classes are really worth bothering with, to the extent that several of them don't really bother reading non-Tome classes. More Tome-level classes (particularly ones with interesting abililty setups) are always welcome.

deanruel87 wrote:You Lost Me, what level are you playing at? Approximately at least

We're beginning at level 5. I was thinking of compiling maneuvers from Weaboo Fightan Magic because they have so many swift action and immediate action things.

On a side note, what does "level X, ECL Y mean?" For reference:

The Game Description wrote:-snip-
If you want a template play something like a fighter or a rogue and draft a level 5, ECL 6 or if you play a monk you can draft level 5 ECL 7. Talk to me about not PHB classes and where they fit.
-snip

That would mean "Fighters and Rogues get a free point of level adjustment (so you could play a Feral Human Fighter or... is the Shadowspawn (Calamari Cookbook) +1 or +2? If offered as a freebie, it works well for Rogues). Monks get 2 free points, so you could be a Monk Saint or something."

Basically it's a case of slapping some bigger numbers, perhaps resistances or natural weapons or something onto a sub-par class to make it better at the lower levels. If you pick the right template, it might work.

Alright, let's do this. What do we think the problems of the Crusader are? The Crusader was what happened when the 4e design team decided to fire the people who could do math and scrap the version of 4e where everyone got to have a unique ability refresh mechanic in favor of everyone having shitty daily power limits that no one liked. The Crusader was originally some sort of card-based mechanic which was handed to Mike Mearls (yes, that one) to half-assedly convert it to a 3.5 class, which he left unfinished because it is a Mike Mearls project.

So the really obvious stuff like the fact that the late levels are empty because it's unfinished and it can't even use all its abilities because Mike Mearls can't be fucked to deliver anything in a passably finished state go without saying. But let's talk about some of the other bits:

• The mechanics are too fiddly. The Crusader literally asks you to track how many rounds ago you got damaged because parts of your incoming damage are delayed and then you're supposed to divide the currently delayed number by other numbers in order to calculate small attack bonuses. Fuck that.
• There aren't enough powers. The thing really wants you to specialize in a fighting school. But the fighting schools are so small and so full of bullshit that most fighting schools are not worth specializing. And since there are only three fighting schools available to a Crusader, having "most" of them be too short in the pants means that there's only one you could potentially do that with, and it's small enough that all Crusaders look the same.
• The card system is kind of fucked up. The shuffling doesn't bring a lot of advantage because at most levels you get all your powers every other round anyway so it's not much different than just having all your powers on a 1 turn cool down. But it's a lot more work.
• High level maneuvers don't exist. 7 points of constitution damage isn't nothing, but it's not something you particularly wipe your ass with at 17th level.

Anything else?

-Username17

My first DnD character ever was a crusader, so I really should have something here. I think that pretty much covers it, though.

edit: this isn't really an issue, but both warblades and swordsages get pretty cool capstones, whereas crusaders get nothing of the sort.

Scalability or Upgrades/Ability Pruning.
You don't want your 1st-level "I hit a bunch of kobolds kinda hard" ability showing up and diluting your effectiveness ten levels later. Therefore, abilities need to scale by level to continue to be worth having, or there needs to be a way to remove abilities once they've passed their expiration date. This can be an explicit upgrading (e.g. at 5th level your "clear a room of kobolds" ability becomes "clear a room of mooks with class levels") or it can be a pruning mechanic where you take an ability or two out of your "deck" every X levels.

Well its refresh mechanic is unabashed bullshit. Making a 3.5 Character is already an hour long job at least, the fact that the Crusader then mandates you arts-n'-crafts up some power cards to randomize at the table is the highest level of bullshit I can envision. If we want it to randomly cycle through powers then it needs to be a much much lighter mechanic that can be conveyed fully on a diagram I can write or print out. Ideally small enough to just write on the sheet somewhere.

My "choose 12 powers, assign them 1-12, roll a d12, you can use the power you rolled or either numerically adjacent power" system is small enough to do that.

Also we probably need to write at least 2 dozen new powers for the higher level maneuvers to matter and allow variation between Crusaders. Starting at 5th level maneuvers things get really sparse in Crusader-town.

FrankTrollman wrote:What do we think the problems of the Crusader are?

So the really obvious stuff like the fact that the late levels are empty

• The mechanics are too fiddly. The Crusader literally asks you to track how many rounds ago you got damaged because parts of your incoming damage are delayed and then you're supposed to divide the currently delayed number by other numbers in order to calculate small attack bonuses. Fuck that.

Not just late levels, the 5th,7th, and 9th as well. Even though Maneuvers progress at those levels, the Tome Soldier, got abilities every level (till 17th and 19th anyway). Given the mention of how gonna need high level abilities, I take it we're not just going to make this a 10 level class? Speaking of such, what level of balance is it gong to be made at, Rogue or Wizard? Personally, always thought it odd Crusader didn't get d12 HD, despite being the class that's made to take hits.

For suggestions on class features, should the Crusader get Mettle earlier? as well what of idea of Zealous Surge being like Tome Barbarian's 13th level feature, would that be too strong for when ability originally shows up? As I guess at worst, could make it a 1/encounter or X/day X=cha mod, then like 9th-13th or so have it upgrade to like the Tome Barbarians. Smite could probably work like soul smite, starts at 2nd, and becomes at-will at 6th? Diehard obviously be like Great Fortitude Tome feat far as that whole biz, so possible could write it up as like a better version of Immortal Fortitude stance? (since Frenzied Berserker PC would have Deathless Frenzy at 10th level for example).

As for Steely Resolve, only really need to is look back on a turn ago, that you likely had already "previously" recorded the damage into the pool though. Since it's borrowed DR effect, then next turn, get the X bonus to attack/damage, and then when your turn has ended, you take the damage. Fair enough on the piddly damage though, I think Steely resolve pool would need to be larger, maybe twice of what it is now, and damage bonus could be something more significant, such as damage bonus =max possible in the pool (so if 1st =10, then get up to +10 damage, or 60 at most, 20th, or most likely much sooner), while attack bonus I guess can be equal to Strength/Con or charisma again.

I like the idea of Steely Resolve, and I think it would be sad to see it go, but changing it to make it less piddly, and stronger effect, I would support.

Mister_Sinister wrote:It stands for Chaos magic which you Can't Hope to Possibly Comprehend. It's something someone in Josh Kablack's playgroup used to refer to WoF.

Actually, while I typically hate the idea of WoF abilities, because it's a matter of WSoD (why the hell can my fighter not use his whirlwind attack this turn? Did he forget how to do one?), Chaos Magic would be an awesome application of it, because it perfectly explains why you don't have control over what abilities you can access at a given moment.

The standard answer to that complaint is that he can use his Whirlwind attack but that if the environment isn't "right" then it takes him longer. Basically every proposed WoF system has something in place for allowing you to do the "Whirlwind Attack" maneuver you have slotted into it if given enough time. My systems personally have let you take a full round action that doesn't provoke attacks of opportunity to automatically get the maneuver of your choice next turn.

It's not that you don't know how to Whirlwind attack anymore, it's that the system abstracts everyone's stances, timing, movements, openings, and opportunities into a single roll that shows you which maneuvers are best able to be used this round. So when you roll "Dragon Punch" the fluff is that your stance, the positions of the goblins around you, and the facings of the various weapons make performing "Dragon Punch" right now much easier than it normally would be.

Basically every fleshed out WoF system we've talked about has come with the concession of allowing you to prep a move of your choice if you have the time and opportunity to do so.