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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 9, 2014 23:23:54 GMT
Another EDIT: How would you feel about something like this for feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Still Spell, Extend Spell, Great Strength I, Great Strength II? That way you're not forcing BKs to choose Evocation foci, but you're still freeing up feats for them to possible choose whatever focus they might want instead. Realized the problem with this feat spread, in that it isn't at all specific for Bane Knight and would work with any Divine fighter (the only unnecessary feat being Still Spell). So I was wondering if it was possible to do something along the lines of what's been done with Rhek instead. Taking into account Vichya's suggestions as well, a new possible formulation for Fallen could be this (things that are modified from the original formulation highlighted in green): "Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings) - FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard - STR +6, INT +2, WIS +2, CHA +4, Hide +5 - Free Feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Still Spell, Extend Spell, Great Strength I, Great Strength II- Other: Special: Upon taking its first spell focus feat, the character receives GSF/ESF in that same school, Survival: Levitation As far as rationale goes for these changes, here's why I chose what I did: INT +2/WIS +2/CHA +4: Per Vichya's suggestion, thought it might be helpful to have a more rounded spread, giving the same total number of bonuses to a wider variety of ability scores since Bane Knight is a class that, unlike many, has no dump stat. It must invest to some degree in all 6 ability scores. Dropped CHA by 1 in order to keep the sum total of bonuses at +14. Power Attack: Thought it would be more balanced to go just with Power Attack, rather than granting Great Cleave as well. The rationale here is that it still frees up a feat in the OC/DC line, but doesn't quite so heavily favor CC Blackguard over CC Sorcerer. Extend Spell: Very useful Bane Knight feat, since Tenser's Transformation, Elemental Shield, and a host of other feats benefit greatly from being extended. Also, this feat offers the added bonus of being helpful for both CC Blackguard and CC Sorcerer variants of the quasi. Great Strength II: I've already explained why I think this feat is necessary. It's a caster subrace. All other caster subraces have +8 (and another +2 from feats). This one ought to have at least +8 including feats. New Special: I was trying to think of something that would not only be useful for both Bane Knight variants, but which would also do a better job of restricting the subrace to the Bane Knight quasi-class. This special would allow Bane Knights to have some build diversity, taking one or two focuses for CC Blackguard, or as many as three focuses for CC Sorcerer. Furthermore it would allow the player to choose which school they want to focus in, rather than restricting them to Evocation. Thoughts? Is this closer to something workable? I believe this current formulation offers less than other XR subraces if you aren't going Bane Knight, and slightly more if you are, which was my goal. Not sure if this is spot on yet, but I think it's getting closer. Let me know.
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Post by Yojimbo on Feb 10, 2014 1:25:50 GMT
I must say I really like the newest special for the BK subby though it seems difficult to code and implement. I think treating Bigby Spells as if they were cast by a specialist or Auto Extend all the Hands and/or Auto Empower the damage Hand would also be a viable and potentially huge bonus.
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Post by KnightErrant on Feb 10, 2014 1:35:22 GMT
Another EDIT: How would you feel about something like this for feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Great Cleave, Still Spell, Extend Spell, Great Strength I, Great Strength II? That way you're not forcing BKs to choose Evocation foci, but you're still freeing up feats for them to possible choose whatever focus they might want instead. Realized the problem with this feat spread, in that it isn't at all specific for Bane Knight and would work with any Divine fighter (the only unnecessary feat being Still Spell). So I was wondering if it was possible to do something along the lines of what's been done with Rhek instead. Taking into account Vichya's suggestions as well, a new possible formulation for Fallen could be this (things that are modified from the original formulation highlighted in green): "Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings) - FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard - STR +6, INT +2, WIS +2, CHA +4, Hide +5 - Free Feats: Power Attack, Cleave, Still Spell, Extend Spell, Great Strength I, Great Strength II- Other: Special: Upon taking its first spell focus feat, the character receives GSF/ESF in that same school, Survival: Levitation As far as rationale goes for these changes, here's why I chose what I did: INT +2/WIS +2/CHA +4: Per Vichya's suggestion, thought it might be helpful to have a more rounded spread, giving the same total number of bonuses to a wider variety of ability scores since Bane Knight is a class that, unlike many, has no dump stat. It must invest to some degree in all 6 ability scores. Dropped CHA by 1 in order to keep the sum total of bonuses at +14. Power Attack: Thought it would be more balanced to go just with Power Attack, rather than granting Great Cleave as well. The rationale here is that it still frees up a feat in the OC/DC line, but doesn't quite so heavily favor CC Blackguard over CC Sorcerer. Extend Spell: Very useful Bane Knight feat, since Tenser's Transformation, Elemental Shield, and a host of other feats benefit greatly from being extended. Also, this feat offers the added bonus of being helpful for both CC Blackguard and CC Sorcerer variants of the quasi. Great Strength II: I've already explained why I think this feat is necessary. It's a caster subrace. All other caster subraces have +8 (and another +2 from feats). This one ought to have at least +8 including feats. New Special: I was trying to think of something that would not only be useful for both Bane Knight variants, but which would also do a better job of restricting the subrace to the Bane Knight quasi-class. This special would allow Bane Knights to have some build diversity, taking one or two focuses for CC Blackguard, or as many as three focuses for CC Sorcerer. Furthermore it would allow the player to choose which school they want to focus in, rather than restricting them to Evocation. Thoughts? Is this closer to something workable? I believe this current formulation offers less than other XR subraces if you aren't going Bane Knight, and slightly more if you are, which was my goal. Not sure if this is spot on yet, but I think it's getting closer. Let me know. That looks like a lot of free feats... If the quasi really needs that many freebies to be viable some of them should likely be addressed by class edits ? KE.
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 10, 2014 1:57:31 GMT
Well yeah. I've suggested that as well, but no responses. If it's too many feats, then maybe drop extend spell. There's plenty of other XR Subraces with 7 feats, which is what it would be if you dropped extend spell.
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Post by Retribution on Feb 11, 2014 9:39:12 GMT
I have been looking at Half-Dogai and I am not sure it is particularly strong for the intended builds, namely STR Assassins. This isn't helped by the fact Assassins are naturally weak compared to Rangers, and also seem to be getting a weaker XR sub (the CS ranger sub Favored of Mielikki grants a better base race, better stats, and a DC bonus). I will also compare it to the current BUR option, Half-Molydeus Half-Dogai (Half-Orc)STR + 8 (+2 Half-Orc) DEX - 2 CON + 2 INT + 4 (-2 Half-Orc) WIS + 0 CHA + 0 (-2 Half-Orc) Hide/MS + 8 WP Exotic, Med/Heavy Armour Prof, ESF Parry/Discipline, Cleave, Great Cleave, Bullheaded Blooded, Toughness from Base Race +1 Caustic Weapon Die Half-Molydeus (Human)STR + 6 DEX + 0 CON + 2 INT + 4 WIS - 2 CHA + 0 Hide/MS + 8 ESF: Hide, Snakeblooded Free feat from Human, +1 Skill Point - 1 Hell Penalty Layer Firstly forcing Half-Orc hurts. While the +2 Str is good, any build that uses Half-Dogai will more than likely be taking Rogue levels (the skill bonus lets you take Assassin levels earlier so you can take other prestige full BAB classes to get +16 BAB). If you aren't taking Rogue levels you might as well use a more uni tank sub (such as the much discussed Koly). Fitting in rogue skills makes them very skill tight, and Half-Dogai is going to be down 2 skill points compared to Half-Moly (only +2 net int bonus, and loses bonus from human). Secondly, the base race feat blooded is useless for Assassins, as they get Tumble as a class skill, so the Human base feat is superior. Any STR Assassin will be taking Parry and Disc qualifiers, unless Assassins get some form of class crit immunity added, so Snakeblood will be somewhat of a default 1st level feat choice. Some of the bonus feats are also not that useful. Most STR Assassins run with Martial weapons anyway for the crit range (light flail, scim, or rapier), although weapon balancing may change this. Almost any build is also going to take some levels of a full BAB class (BG/Fighter/Ranger etc), most of which grant armour proficiencies. Heavy armour proficiency is not particularly useful either, as Med almost always gives more AC, and Assassins don't have the immunities to work as heavy armour wearing soak tanks (no critical immunity is a major). The ESFs are nice but not that necessary, and Hide is often harder to max on gear than parry or disc. Bullheaded is good (actually a must really), and cleave/great cleave are also useful as pre-reqs for over/dev, but compared to Half-Moly you only really gain 1 feat (snakeblooded and human bonus vs bullheaded and cleave/great cleave). The Dex penalty also plain hurts given STR Assassins generally want for AC and tend to suffer vs DEX checks as it is. Half-Moly has pretty good stats as it takes a penalty to wisdom (a dump stat anyway). The extra caustic die is also relatively weak compared to a 1 layer reduction IMO, and equipping spellslots to buff everyone would be a major challenge. Swapping Exotic Weapon Proficiency for Snakeblooded would help free up build choices by allowing other first level qualifiers to be taken. Removing the DEX penalty and changing it for Wisdom would help with AC/tankiness (but still discourage Divine tanks). Increasing INT to +6 (+4 net) would help a bit to alleviate the skill point issue, or perhaps bonus skill points for each Assassin level could be added, to stop other builds cheesing easy skill points. The Armour Proficiencies could also be changed for something more useful, like SF: OL or DT, or Great STR I/II. Have to pop out but will add more thoughts later, I am interested in what others think. Noone had any thoughts on this? Were a few posts after it on Fallen so unsure if it got overlooked or people disagree with me
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 11, 2014 11:58:56 GMT
I was actually thinking about it but I need to take a closer look before I can give a more satisfying analysis.
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Post by jeanhelixü on Feb 11, 2014 15:02:05 GMT
I'd like to add Ak'Chazar Rakshasa - Male to the list of races that need a rework.
"Ak'Chazar Rakshasa" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Sorerer (Male), Wizard (Female) / BC: Palemaster - Female: CON +4, INT +8, Hide +5 - Male: CON +4, CHA +8, Hide +5 - Free Feats (Male and Female): Cleave, Still Spell, Auto Still Spell I-III - Other (Male and Female): Auto-Empowered Finger of Death, SR 15 + lvl
Cleave and +5 hide are the biggest possible teases you can give to a sorc-PM. The abos staff which allows sorc PMs to gain the spell penetration, CL, and DC which make them a PM does not allow a blackguard splash. It requires 20 PM levels and 18 sorc, so theoretically allows 2 splash. However 18 sorc provides only 1 level 9 slot, which the abos staff requires be energy drain. This means you'd be a PM without weird or pwk, which would make you almost useless in most areas of the mod compared to a PM with those spells. You might then tell me "Well why don't you take extra known spell 9", but that requires 21 sorc levels pre-legendary which you can't take and be a sorc PM.
If the abos sorc-PM staff was changed to allow 18 PM levels to qualify for it, it would resolve the issue. Otherwise all of the bonus feats are worthless. Cleave is a prereq for BG but no use to a caster otherwise. Autostill spell is only useful if you are wearing armor without ASF reduction, which you would have to spend 3 feats to get heavy armor proficiency, since sorc+pm only gets robe proficiency base, and again you aren't able to splash.
Still spell lets you cast spells on one spell tier higher, which is slightly useful, but extend is better since you won't be wearing armor anyways.
Hide +5 is useless since you can't actually splash BG.
I will grant that the auto-emp FoD and SR are useful though, but with all feats being worthless this race is dead in the water.
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Post by chainlink on Feb 11, 2014 15:20:22 GMT
I'd like to add Ak'Chazar Rakshasa - Male to the list of races that need a rework. "Ak'Chazar Rakshasa" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Sorerer (Male), Wizard (Female) / BC: Palemaster - Female: CON +4, INT +8, Hide +5 - Male: CON +4, CHA +8, Hide +5 - Free Feats (Male and Female): Cleave, Still Spell, Auto Still Spell I-III - Other (Male and Female): Auto-Empowered Finger of Death, SR 15 + lvl Cleave and +5 hide are the biggest possible teases you can give to a sorc-PM. The abos staff which allows sorc PMs to gain the spell penetration, CL, and DC which make them a PM does not allow a blackguard splash. It requires 20 PM levels and 18 sorc, so theoretically allows 2 splash. However 18 sorc provides only 1 level 9 slot, which the abos staff requires be energy drain. This means you'd be a PM without weird or pwk, which would make you almost useless in most areas of the mod compared to a PM with those spells. You might then tell me "Well why don't you take extra known spell 9", but that requires 21 sorc levels pre-legendary which you can't take and be a sorc PM. If the abos sorc-PM staff was changed to allow 18 PM levels to qualify for it, it would resolve the issue. Otherwise all of the bonus feats are worthless. Cleave is a prereq for BG but no use to a caster otherwise. Autostill spell is only useful if you are wearing armor without ASF reduction, which you would have to spend 3 feats to get heavy armor proficiency, since sorc+pm only gets robe proficiency base, and again you aren't able to splash. Still spell lets you cast spells on one spell tier higher, which is slightly useful, but extend is better since you won't be wearing armor anyways. Hide +5 is useless since you can't actually splash BG. I will grant that the auto-emp FoD and SR are useful though, but with all feats being worthless this race is dead in the water. Not to mention the appalingly bad selection of PM bonus feats (which doesn't (currently) include great Int (or Cha for a Sorc) and as you've already been given Auto-Still I-III I think you're going to run out of useful things to take.
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 11, 2014 15:22:11 GMT
To start, I think your comparison of Half-Dogai to Half-Molydeus is very well thought out and you bring up some great points. It definitely seems to me, from your analysis that the subrace needs some work. That being said, Banshrae seems like it's a solid subrace, so it might be helpful to compare the two side-by-side. Here we go:
"Half-Dogai" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FCs: Fighter, Barbarian / BC: Assassin - STR +8, DEX -2, CON +2, INT +4, Hide +8, Move Silently +8 - Free Feats: WP: Exotic, Armor proficiency Heavy/Medium, ESF: Discipline/Parry, Cleave, Great Cleave, Bullheaded - Other: +1 die to Caustic Weapon
"Banshrae" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FCs: Monk, Rogue / BC: Assassin - DEX +8, INT +4, Hide +8, Move Silently +8 - Free Feats: Great Dexterity I/II, WF/GWF: Assassin Dagger, Snakeblooded - Other: Very Fast
So the first thing that sticks out to me is the difference in total ability score bonuses/penalties when you include those from the base races. Half-Dogai gets +12 from the subrace and a total of -2 from Half-Orc. Banshrae gets +12 from the subrace and a total of +/-0 from Halfling. Already thus far into analyzing the two seems that Half-Dogai might be better served by a total +14 to stats from subrace. I think it might be a bit much to give them +8 STR and +6 INT, as I don't believe any other subrace gets two large bonuses like that, but it might be helpful to either simply remove the -2 penalty to DEX, or move it to WIS and give a +2 bonus to DEX to help with AC and DEX checks.
In regards to feats, it's actually a bit more complicated since Half-Dogai gets a total of 8 and Banshrae only gets a total of 5. That being said, it's important to also look at the quality of the feats that are given. Firstly, I feel like WP: Exotic is far from optimal because it encourages STR assassins to invest in an exotic weapon when they may want something else, be it Martial (where there are plenty of good options) or even Simple, like Morningstar. I definitely agree that the armor proficiencies seem a bit redundant, as I assume that most, if not all, STR assassins are going to be taking at least one, most likely 2 Full BAB classes pre-epic which will already grand those feats, as you've pointed out. ESF: Discipline/Parry are nice, but there are far better options for epic feats and I can't imagine a max STR assassin is going to be hurting for Discipline, especially if they have Bullheaded already. Cleave, Great Cleave and Bullheaded, however, are all incredibly useful feats and give a lot to the subrace. To sum up, it seems that out of 8 feats, 3 are useful (Cleave, Great Cleave, Bullheaded), 2 are suboptimal (WP: Exotic, ESF: Parry), and 3 are virtually useless (ESF: Discipline, Armor Proficiency Heavy/Medium). For a build that makes use of WP: Exotic and ESF: Parry, you might have 5 worthwhile feats, but in all likelihood, you're not going to be getting as much use out of them as Banshrae will be getting out of their feats. Speaking of Banshrae, it's important to note that all 5 of their feats are incredibly useful. Sure, it practically requires you to use Assassin Dagger, but if you're going DEX assassin, your damage is already going to be lackluster so you may as well invest as much as possible in what you do best, which WF/GWF: Assassin Dagger helps facilitate. To me, the most obvious suggestion for what to change as far as Half-Dogai feats are concerned is to drop the total number of feats to 5, and give them Cleave, Great Cleave, Bullheaded, Great STR I, and Great STR II.
Obviously, this isn't the most in-depth analysis, but I think it might provide some insights. Provided I've managed to present something akin to a coherent argument, I believe Half-Dogai would be better formulated as follows:
"Half-Dogai" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FCs: Fighter, Barbarian / BC: Assassin - STR +8, DEX +2, CON +2, WIS -2, INT +4, Hide +8, Move Silently +8 - Free Feats: Cleave, Great Cleave, Bullheaded, Great Strength I, Great Strength II - Other: +1 die to Caustic Weapon
This formulation seems, to my mind, to be a lot more straight-forward, lacking the numerous superfluous feats of the original, and geared towards helping STR assassins do what they do best. To my mind, the Great STR feats are necessary addition to the subrace because they free up some much-needed epic feats. You're already going to be swapping your Epic Reflexes feats for Great STRs, devoting all of your Assassin bonus feats to that purpose, since Assassin doesn't offer Epic Prowess, Armor Skin, EWF, OC, or DC as bonus feats. This would allow STR assassins to take for their epic feats something like: Armor Skin, EWF, OC, DC, Epic Prowess, and a couple of Great Strength feats. Furthermore, this current formulation is also a nice upgrade from Half-Molydeus.
How does this look, T Scott? Something along the lines of what you were thinking, or do you think it needs more work?
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 11, 2014 15:34:06 GMT
I'd like to add Ak'Chazar Rakshasa - Male to the list of races that need a rework. "Ak'Chazar Rakshasa" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Sorerer (Male), Wizard (Female) / BC: Palemaster - Female: CON +4, INT +8, Hide +5 - Male: CON +4, CHA +8, Hide +5 - Free Feats (Male and Female): Cleave, Still Spell, Auto Still Spell I-III - Other (Male and Female): Auto-Empowered Finger of Death, SR 15 + lvl Cleave and +5 hide are the biggest possible teases you can give to a sorc-PM. The abos staff which allows sorc PMs to gain the spell penetration, CL, and DC which make them a PM does not allow a blackguard splash. It requires 20 PM levels and 18 sorc, so theoretically allows 2 splash. However 18 sorc provides only 1 level 9 slot, which the abos staff requires be energy drain. This means you'd be a PM without weird or pwk, which would make you almost useless in most areas of the mod compared to a PM with those spells. You might then tell me "Well why don't you take extra known spell 9", but that requires 21 sorc levels pre-legendary which you can't take and be a sorc PM. If the abos sorc-PM staff was changed to allow 18 PM levels to qualify for it, it would resolve the issue. Otherwise all of the bonus feats are worthless. Cleave is a prereq for BG but no use to a caster otherwise. Autostill spell is only useful if you are wearing armor without ASF reduction, which you would have to spend 3 feats to get heavy armor proficiency, since sorc+pm only gets robe proficiency base, and again you aren't able to splash. Still spell lets you cast spells on one spell tier higher, which is slightly useful, but extend is better since you won't be wearing armor anyways. Hide +5 is useless since you can't actually splash BG. I will grant that the auto-emp FoD and SR are useful though, but with all feats being worthless this race is dead in the water. What about something like this instead? "Ak'Chazar Rakshasa" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Sorerer (Male), Wizard (Female) / BC: Palemaster - Female: CON +4, INT +8 - Male: CON +4, CHA +8 - Free Feats (Male and Female): Spell Penetration, Still Spell - Free Feats (Male): Great CHA I, Great CHA II - Free Feats (Female): Great INT I, Great INT II - Other (Male and Female): Auto-Empowered Finger of Death, SR 15 + lvl Still Spell still gives you the option of picking up Auto-Still if you so choose, no more useless Hide +5 (useless even for Wiz PMs since they have a billion skill points anyway). Spell Pen feat for the sake of having something universally more useful pre-epic (or you could have SF Necro, doesn't really make a difference). And two Great CHA/INT feats because almost every other caster XR subrace seems to get something along those lines. Still gets the same number of bonus stats and feats as other caster races this way. Better formulation? Need more work?
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Post by Raj on Feb 11, 2014 19:09:38 GMT
But then there's
that's basically the same.
I though about pointing out the gnome rakshasa fail but the female version is okay I suppose, it's more of a problem with how sorc/pm works (beside being a build affordable only to people with access to abo loot...). I agree with Jean concerns about the viability of a 18 vs 20 splash, and any bg splash is unaffordable for them.
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 11, 2014 19:25:36 GMT
Yeah that's true. Out of curiosity... is there any reason why Ak'chazar Rakshasa has to have different stats for Male and Female? Can't it just be:
"Ak'Chazar Rakshasa" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Wizard / BC: Palemaster - CON +4, INT +8, Hide +5 - Free Feats: Cleave, Still Spell, Auto Still Spell I-III - Other (Male and Female): Auto-Empowered Finger of Death, SR 15 + lvl
That might still need a little bit of help, but I think it's workable. Also, if you're going to encourage BG splash with the Hide +5 and Cleave, why not have the stats be something like CON +2, INT +8, CHA +2 instead since Gnome is already getting +2 CON? It would distinguish it even moreso from Velsharoon's Chosen as a BG splash tanky PM.
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Post by chirality on Feb 12, 2014 1:06:23 GMT
Are you saying to just remove the sorc from the equation entirely?
That's a good point since it's useless anyway..?
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 12, 2014 3:33:49 GMT
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. If it's a good subrace for Wizard PMs but useless of Sorc PMs, it just makes sense to remove the Sorcerer side of it entirely. It's not like any Sorcerer PM is going to complain if they have to "settle" for Velsharoon's chosen.
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Post by jeanhelixü on Feb 12, 2014 4:15:07 GMT
That would be a reasonable enough solution. It would be great if the abos staff allowed 18 PM levels to qualify so that bg splashing could actually be possible, but in the current state, just removing the sorc gender from that race is a good solution for it being useless.
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