Celestial Classes and Feats

[IGTN]

Fiend feats are already powerful. Large Size gives you enormous stat boosts, for example. So, yes, people use non-scaling feats and scaling feats together.

[Maxus]

Some of the ones from the Tome of Necromancy aren't bad, either. (Ghost Cut Technique's a favorite of mine)

But, yeah, Tome of Fiends and Tome of Necromancy have single-benefit feats worth taking.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Posting a fragment of in-progress base class. Still trying to figure out what direction to take this.

Level, Benefit
1: Immortality, Angelic Power,
2: Battle Magic
3: Angelic Power
4: Sphere
5: Greater Angelic Power
6: Battle Magic
7: Greater Angelic Power
8: Sphere
9: Exalted Angelic Power,
10: Battle Magic
------------(maybe cut to 10 levels)
11: Exalted Angelic Power, Bonus Feat
12: Sphere
13: Arch Angelic Power
14: Battle Magic
15: Arch Angelic Power,
16: Sphere
17: Supreme Angelic Power, Holy Power
18: Battle Magic
19: Supreme Angelic Power,
20: Sphere

--------------------
Angelic Powers:

Permanent boosts. Maybe base them off of soulmelds.
Give out enhancement bonuses or not?

Battle Magic:

Usable more frequently than Sphere abilities, should probably be less impressive.
Control uses by minutes, encounters, 5 round increments? I like 5 round cooldowns.

Look these classes by Maxus and Koumei
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=133941
http://tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=50979

Possibly split Battle Magic up into six "schools" based on Skies of Arcadia lunar divisions solely because I can.

Blue:
Water, Air

Red:
Fire, Physical buffs

Yellow:
Lightning, Physical Debuffs

Purple:
Cold, Psychic

Green:
Life, Plants/Earth

Silver:
Death, Status Effect cures

[For Valor]

I'm lookin' at those classes. Is that what you're thinking of for the Battle Magic? I can see it working, but I need a starting point..

Also:

Blue Battle Magic: Mayhaps sonic?

And I'm thinking the 4 types of Celestial are Aasimon (Angels/Devas), Eladrins, Guardinals, and Archons. Is that right?

[Maxus]

And I'm thinking the 4 types of Celestial are Aasimon (Angels/Devas), Eladrins, Guardinals, and Archons. Is that right?

Sounds about right.

But the goal of the Celestial classes would be to let you play a specific kind of Celestial if you're so inclined.

Like how you can play a Balor or Marilith with Fiend classes and feats.

[Avoraciopoctules]

I am still working on these classes, but some of my finals are happening early, so that's cut down on my design time quite a bit.

I am also considering writing scaling Celestial feats for specific types of celestial. Hound Archons would have Evil-detection (maybe Scent with doubled range for evil "stuff"), animal forms, maybe a natural weapon and speed boost. Ghaeles and Lantern Archons might both be the same feat. Protective Aura, damaging gaze, tiny ball of light form, Medium colorful ball of light form.

[Maxus]

Ghaeles and Lantern Archons might both be the same feat. Protective Aura, damaging gaze, tiny ball of light form, Medium colorful ball of light form and lasering fools IN THE FACE.

Fixed.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Alright, these feats seem to write themselves and I am giving myself a break after my first early final.

Radiant Guardian [Celestial]
The power to protect the innocent comes free with the power to glow real bright
1: Gain Basic Access to the Aegis Sphere, or advance your access one step if you do have it. If you already have Expert access to the Sphere, its benefits go out to Long range.
2: You have a Gaze Attack. It deals 5 points of Light damage per 5 character levels per round of exposure, rounding up. Once every 3 rounds, you may focus it on a target within Short range as a Standard action, inflicting 1d4 Light damage per character level plus Blindness for 1 minute per character level. A successful Charisma-based Fortitude save halves the damage and negates the blindness.
6: You may transform into a globe of light or back as a move action. This means that you lack appendages and lose your Armor and Natural Armor bonuses to AC, but gives you a Fly speed equal to your normal speed with Perfect maneuverability. You have 2 Light Ray natural weapons. These are rays with a 50 foot range increment that deal 1d8 Light damage base for a medium creature and have an Enhancement bonus. You shed light like a torch. You may stay in globe form for a max of one round per character level, and must wait at least a minute in normal form before turning back.
11: You may stay in globe form for as long as you want and shift back and forth freely. Your speed in globe form upgrades to twice your base speed and you have 4 Light Rays. You may fire 2 of them with a Standard action to attack.
16: You may transform into globe of swirling colors. This is like your globe of light form, but it is incorporeal and your rays have the Ghost Touch property.

Hound of Justice [Celestial]
Your nose was made for sniffing out villainy
1: You gain a special form of Scent which has double range for detecting something Evil.
2: You may turn into a doglike monster or back as a Move action. This is like the Lycanthropy spell (from the Dungeonomicon) but is Supernatural and does not allow Flying or Swimming forms. Also no duration limits. You can pick Bite for your natural weapon multiple times.
6: You gain Trip in doggie form and your natural weapons get an enhancement bonus. You get a bite attack in your normal form if you don't already have one.
11: Gain Basic Access to the Valor Sphere, or advance your access one step if you do have it. If you already have Expert access to the Sphere, all allies within Short range become immune to Fear effects as well.
16: Once every 3 rounds, you may spend a full-round action barking. This is really painful to Evil stuff, dealing 1d6 Sonic damage per character level plus Deafness for 1 minute per character level. A successful Charisma-based Fortitude save halves the damage and negates the deafness. It also lets people under the influence of effects that magically hold them in place, control their minds, or force them to sleep to make a saving throw to break free. The effect goes out to Medium range.

There we are. Not sure about some of the abilities, but these look good enough to post.

[Draculmaulkee]

On page 1 of this thread, SunTzuWarmaster converted the Product of Infernal Dalliance feat to Product of Celestial Dalliance pretty much unchanged. As a result, at first level anyone can get the [Angel] subtype. Doesn't this seem a mite overpowered, as that grants a permanent Lesser Globe of Invulneribility effect?

[For Valor]

On page 1 of this thread, SunTzuWarmaster converted the Product of Infernal Dalliance feat to Product of Celestial Dalliance pretty much unchanged. As a result, at first level anyone can get the [Angel] subtype. Doesn't this seem a mite overpowered, as that grants a permanent Lesser Globe of Invulneribility effect?

Yes, which is part of the argument that the benefits of gaining the benefits of an [X] subtype is not part of the feat itself--all you get to do is call yourself whatever subtype you take; you're not getting any invulnerabilities, resistances, or auras and the like.

[Kaelik]

On page 1 of this thread, SunTzuWarmaster converted the Product of Infernal Dalliance feat to Product of Celestial Dalliance pretty much unchanged. As a result, at first level anyone can get the [Angel] subtype. Doesn't this seem a mite overpowered, as that grants a permanent Lesser Globe of Invulneribility effect?

No. It's bad as much as it is good, and it's a feat, and feats hand out all kinds of awesome stuff.

[Surgo]

Lesser Globe of Invulnerability being fetchable at level 1 is definitely an issue, how big or not big of course being more or less campaign-dependent. Kind of like having fire immunity, but more extreme.

If anything, it's a reason to show why you can't just take the fiend shit and multiply it by negative unity to get celestial shit. You actually have to put some creative effort into it.

Yes, which is part of the argument that the benefits of gaining the benefits of an [X] subtype is not part of the feat itself--all you get to do is call yourself whatever subtype you take; you're not getting any invulnerabilities, resistances, or auras and the like.

No, I don't think it's part of that argument at all. I think it's part of the argument that you need to actually make *new* feats tailored to the new situation, not old inverted old feats.

[Draculmaulkee]

@kaelik
I know Tome feats are supposed to give major benefits, but I think the Product of Celestial Dalliance feat is too powerful (assuming it grants the traits associated with the subtype chosen.) I mean, with just this one feat any character of up to 6th level will be pretty much impervious to everything a wizard/other spellcasters can throw at him, in addition to getting all the other goodies of the [Angel] type.

@everybody
Do you think maybe the Product of Celestial Dalliance feat should be split up and scaled? You get the energy immunities and other minor stuff at 1st level, and then get the other more powerful abilities later? Kind of like what Avoraciopoctules was doing, except it wouldn't have the [Celestial] tag .

[Avoraciopoctules]

Do you think maybe the Product of Celestial Dalliance feat should be split up and scaled? You get the energy immunities and other minor stuff at 1st level, and then get the other more powerful abilities later? Kind of like what Avoraciopoctules was doing, except it wouldn't have the [Celestial] tag

I certainly think so. Then again, I think Product of Infernal Dalliance is too front-loaded as well. Here's a feat I wrote for a character when I wanted them to grab [Fiend] stuff, but didn't want to get the pile of powers that all come at once with Product and didn't want them to be a tiefling.

Blessing of Echidna
This feat scales with character level.

The totally PG-13 rated power of the Mother of Monsters infuses you.
1: You gain the benefits of the Raised by Monsters character background and may pick [Fiend] and/or [Monstrous] character options.
2: You gain a Claw attack that deals Slashing/Piercing damage but is otherwise identical to a Monk's Slam attack. You also gain the benefits of wearing a Ring of Regeneration,
6: By infusing your spilled blood with spare bits of your power, you may grow monsters favorably disposed toward you almost instantly. This takes a full round and deals 1 damage to you for each creature you make. Monsters are Helpful to you, and are at least for the first hour willing to accept requests that are obviously very dangerous. If they are not made into Followers or Cohorts, they will probably wander away after an hour.

The monster's Challenge Rating must be 3 less than your character level or lower. You can also choose to double the number of creatures created by reducing the max CR of the creatures by 2 per doubling (at 9th level you could summon one CR 6 monster, two CR 4 monsters, 4 CR 2 monsters, or 8 CR 1 monsters). Monsters may not have levels in classes when created.

This may be done three times per day, and a max of once per hour.

11: You have learned to spawn monstrous servitors without the focus and preparation normally required. As an Immediate action when you take damage, you may create monsters, counting against your limit of uses per day and hour as normal.When spawning monsters this way, the Challenge Rating cap starts at 6 less than your character level.

The number of times you can spawn monsters increases to once per day per character level, with a max of twice per hour.

16: The number of times you can spawn monsters increases to three times per hour, no daily cap. When this ability is used to replace Followers with a CR of 8 or less, it does not count against your limit.

What would you want a basic "I'm a Celestial!" feat to do?

[Kaelik]

assuming it grants the traits associated with the subtype chosen.

It does. They always do. People need to stop pretending that there is even a 1% chance that Dalliance Feats don't grant abilities.

I mean, with just this one feat any character of up to 6th level will be pretty much impervious to everything a wizard/other spellcasters can throw at him, in addition to getting all the other goodies of the [Angel] type.

Yes, they are immune to everything a level 6 or lower Wizard might do to them. Like for example, cast Enlarge Person. Or any other buff. Or Cure Light wounds.

And since most monsters use either punching people or supernatural abilities, that means that they have tremendous advantages, tremendous disadvantages, and probably die all the time.

It's bad to give them a protective aura with a feat, not because it's too powerful, but instead because it is cripplingly bad.

[Draculmaulkee]

@Avoraciopoctules
I like the feat you made... flavor and balance-wise. It could work for celestials, but I think the Product of Celestial Dalliance feat should be more a feat that turns you into a [Angel, Guardinal, or whatever]. Maybe substitute the monster spawning abilities with a staggered energy resistance/immunity progression and the signature abilities of celestials (summons, aura of protection, etc.) plus extra celestialish abilities if needed to make the feat worth taking?

@Kaelik
You're right, I didn't think about the effects the aura would have on buffing. What level do you think having the aura wouldn't be a problem?

[Avoraciopoctules]

So a blander celestial-conversion feat. Archons seem easiest.

Archon
This feat scales with character level.
It almost feels like you were made out of a composite of the dissolved souls of a bunch of righteous but unimportant people.

1: You have immunity to Electricity, have the [Lawful] and [Good] subtypes, and may take [Celestial] character options.

2: You are immune to Petrification and may speak with any creature that has a language as if you were under a Tongues effect.

You also produce a 20-foot radius Aura of Menace when fighting or angry. The Will save is Charisma-based, and you do not get an arbitrary racial bonus to the DC from this feat.

6: You are always surrounded by a Magic Circle Against Evil with a caster level equal to your character level.

You get the following at-will SLAs: Aid, Continual Flame, Detect Evil, Message

11: Being pretty pro at this whole scourge of darkness thing, you have enough of a rep that you can call in homies to lay the smack down on evildoers even though most actual archons can't.

Once per day, you can Summon an Outsider with the [Good] subtype. The
Outsider’s Challenge Rating must be 3 less than your character level or lower. You can also choose to double the number of creatures summoned by reducing the max CR of the creatures by 2 per doubling (at 11th level, you could summon one CR 8 celestial, two CR 6 celestials, 4 CR 4 celestials, 8 CR 2 celestials, or 16 CR 1 celestials). This is treated as a spell of one half your level, rounded down, with a caster level equal to your level.

16: Gain Basic Access to the Purification Sphere, or advance your access one step if you do have it
If you already have Expert Access, you can now use Horrid Wilting at will.

------

Is this the sort of thing you're looking for?

[ubernoob]

Something closer to this, I think

Archon
Your mommy was kind of a slut for holy guys

HD: Benefit

1: Darkvision, Lowlight Vision, +4 racial bonus to saves against poison, tongues, electricity immunity, can take celestial feats
6: Magic Circle, greater teleport
11: Aura of Menace*

*Because it's an annoying mechanic it gets moved to the bottom.


Oh, and you get to smite evil as a paladin of your character level once per day. And pick two energy types. You get ER 10 to those.

[Kaelik]

@Kaelik
You're right, I didn't think about the effects the aura would have on buffing. What level do you think having the aura wouldn't be a problem?

There is no level at which an always on non suppressible Lesser Globe of Invulnerability is not a problem. It's a terrible thing to give to a player ever at all, and it's not even good for Angels, since it means that Angels mem a bunch of spells they can't even use, like Divine Favor.

But it's less terrible at level 7+, because at those levels it is at least theoretically possible for you to interact in the same universe as a Wizard.

[Draculmaulkee]

*Removed because the ideas contained in this post sucked*

[Kaelik]

I'm thinking that maybe we should combine the two feats and stagger the abilities some.
Using Avoraciopoctules' as the base:
(level) 1: replace immunity with 3 resistance/level, add darkvision and low-light vision.
2: remove immunity to petrification, remove aura of menace, add +4 on saves vs poison
4: add immunity to petrification and lightning
5: add aura of menace
7: add teleportation (not really sure where this should go)
does that look somewhat balanced? Or is the staggering not neccessary?

I never thought anyone would make a feat worse than Avoracalnalkdsfj, but you sure fucking did.

Failtastic.

[Draculmaulkee]

I never thought anyone would make a feat worse than Avoracalnalkdsfj, but you sure fucking did.

Failtastic.

I guess that's a no. How would you make the feat then? One that isn't front-heavy and combines the actual abilites of the archon with higher level abilites that are appropriate (such as the summoning ability.)

[Avoraciopoctules]

I never thought anyone would make a feat worse than Avoracalnalkdsfj, but you sure fucking did.

Failtastic.

My, such vehemence! Perhaps you would be willing to give some constructive criticism if you find my creations so abhorrent?

[Kaelik]

I guess that's a no. How would you make the feat then? One that isn't front-heavy and combines the actual abilites of the archon with higher level abilites that are appropriate (such as the summoning ability.)

1) A feat should not grant all the aspects of an Archon. Especially not summoning. A single feat is not supposed to be worth more than your class. Greater Teleport is a single feat suitable to a level 5 character, it should not be the level 7 rider to a feat that gives you other awesome stuff.

2) The Aura of Protection is not a PC friendly ability. It means your stupid Archon can't even stand within 20ft of the Druid/Cleric/Wizard without him hating you. No one should get that.

Likewise, Aura of Menace is complicated and annoying and is not very PC friendly, but can be fixed.

3) Your feat grants abilities at levels 1, 2, 4, 5, and 7. Why is it even a scaling feat? Scaling feats grant abilities spaced out across your career, if you can give it to them at 1/2/4/5/7, you can just give it to them at one.

If I wanted to make an Archon feat, it would be a hybrid Angel/Archon/Eladrin one that grants you the subtype, but explicitly calls out not having the aura of protection or teleport, and instead grants magic circle for the angel, and nothing for the archon.

Then it would also grant them some small DR/evil and bless at will.

[Kaelik]

I never thought anyone would make a feat worse than Avoracalnalkdsfj, but you sure fucking did.

Failtastic.

My, such vehemence! Perhaps you would be willing to give some constructive criticism if you find my creations so abhorrent?

I already did. You ignored it and kept making shitty feats. Since you made it clear you would ignore my criticism, I stopped giving it.