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Post by Yojimbo on Feb 21, 2014 20:16:39 GMT
I think having mounted combat is good for many of the Divine races but for the Baneknight it does leave them feeling like they got saddled with a useless feat and the other races will provide as good or better options for utilizing the PDK class.
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Post by kaezar on Feb 21, 2014 20:35:32 GMT
I think having mounted combat is good for many of the Divine races but for the Baneknight it does leave them feeling like they got saddled with a useless feat and the other races will provide as good or better options for utilizing the PDK class. You may not remember, but after the subbies had been mostly decided, Funky gave a pass through adding feats/skills like Mounted Combat to add some flavor. Don't think of it as a wasted feat, but like a free feat. Take care kaezar
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Post by kaezar on Feb 21, 2014 20:49:43 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? That looks a lot more along the lines of what I was thinking. The skill point issue is still quite major (down 2 skill points from Human Half-Moly), but at least the above changes would make bumping INT a bit more feasible. I would love to hear from some other STR Assassin players (are there many?) to see what they think, if any are reading the board. Thanks for taking the time Semner Okay people, sorry but I have to disagree with you. Strongly Here is the thing, putting cleave/great cleave on that subby is a blatant cue to go the OC/DC Way, or at leat the blackguard route. I lobbied hard against this kind of thing. I think it is actually counter to build diversity. I think a good idea is to see what class/build for which the subby is intended, then look for the commonaly between those builds. That is, which feats every build made has. Give *those* feats as bonus. It gives the number of feats needed, and then the player can choose, from the other options, what he wants. So for this subby I would go with "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: Bullheaded, Snakeblood, Armor Skin, Great Strength I, Great Strength II - Other: +1 die to Caustic Weapon If the 3 epic/2 normal feat breakdown is thought to be too much, it could go -4 wis, or cut the +2 Con Take care Kaezar
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 21, 2014 21:07:32 GMT
I'm sorry, I guess I'm just a little confused about what STR assassin isn't going to take OC/DC? That being said, I don't really see a problem with your formulation either. In fact it's probably stronger than my formulation.
Also, in regards to Mounted Combat on Fallen, there are already so many other subraces that get Mounted Combat, and PDK is simply not ever a viable choice of splash on Bane Knights. Xeph, Jaebrin, Alu-Fiend, Half-Excruciarch, Solarborn, and Half-Lillend all get it. Most of them are better formulated than Fallen, none of them are designed for use by a quasi-class. I just don't see why it has to be on Fallen too, when there are so many other subraces, that are better suited for PDK, that already have it.
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Post by FunkySwerve on Feb 21, 2014 21:11:38 GMT
Doesn't have to be on Fallen, but certainly isn't doing any harm there, and may pave the way for interesting options in the future, especially as PDKs are likely due for some edits to make them a viable splash.
Funky
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Post by kaezar on Feb 21, 2014 21:13:58 GMT
I'll take it subrace by subrace and just post updated versions of the subraces that everyone seems to have agreed upon: "Tanarukk" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Barbarian - STR +6, CON +4, INT +4 - Free Feats: ESF: Intimidate/Taunt, Terrifying Rage, Thundering Rage, Mighty Rage, Alertness - Other: Thundering Rage grants +6 fire dice if their weapon has fire (doesn't stack with flame weapon/darkfire) I believe the consensus here is that the only real problem with Tanarukk was the lack-luster special, which is more than offset by changing the dice to 6. "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 It seems everyone was in agreement that this formulation for Half-Dogai was a lot better, with a lot less useless feats. "Ak'Chazar Rakshasa" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Sorcerer (Male), Wizard (Female) / BC: Palemaster - Female: CON +4, INT +8, Hide +5 - Male: CON +4, CHA +8 - Free Feats (Female): Cleave, Still Spell, Auto Still Spell I-III - Free Feats (Male): Armor Proficiency (Heavy), Still Spell, Auto Still Spell I-III - Other (Male and Female): Auto-Empowered Finger of Death, SR 15 + lvl The biggest issue here was the lack of viability for BG splash Sorc PM. Consensus was that opting for allowing Sorc PMs with this subrace to just be armored PMs was an sufficient fix. "Favored of Gruumsh" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Monk - STR +4, DEX +4, CON +2, INT +2, WIS +2 - Free Feats: Power Attack, Great Cleave, WF/GWF: Quarterstaff, Great Strength I, Epic Prowess - Other: +5% Empty Body conceal Not sure if there was any clear consensus about this, other than the fact that the stat bonuses were better (didn't seem like there was a lot of discussion after that). Could possible use some more hashing out. "Fallen" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings) - FC: Sorcerer / BC: Blackguard - STR +6, INT +2, WIS +2, CHA +4, Hide +5 - Free Feats: 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 Still not sure what to do with this one, even though it's probably the one that had the most discussion. Didn't seem to be any real consensus. Though, I think in light of the possible boost to the BK spell-list, something like this would work. The only thing I've changed from my last suggestion is to drop Power Attack since KE pointed out that there were too many feats and all of the other feats are useful for both CC Sorc and CC BG BKs. Could probably include Laser's suggestions for BFM/DSM subraces on this but we didn't really discuss them much and they're only 2 posts above this. Tanarukk Seems okay, but haven't got much experience with barbs, mine are still in LL Half-Dogai For racionale, See my post above, b ut in essence, take off power attack, cleave, add snakeblood/armor skin. Ak'Chazar Rakshasa Seems okay, except for the special ability, which makes necessary for sorc pm's to take FoD to benefit. What about giving +1 to DC with death magic spells? Or if that's too hard to code, +1 DC with Weird. Favored of Gruumsh Same criticism as for Half-Dogai. Going power attack/cleave is directing the build. I actually like the original feat spread better. At least I never saw a serious tank build that didn't have armor skin and epic prowess. Fallen Seema okay to me. Take care kaezar
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Post by Yojimbo on Feb 21, 2014 21:18:09 GMT
I think having mounted combat is good for many of the Divine races but for the Baneknight it does leave them feeling like they got saddled with a useless feat and the other races will provide as good or better options for utilizing the PDK class. You may not remember, but after the subbies had been mostly decided, Funky gave a pass through adding feats/skills like Mounted Combat to add some flavor. Don't think of it as a wasted feat, but like a free feat. Take care kaezar I understand that but I am thinking from the mentality people might assume when they get/use such a subrace.
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Post by Twilight Semner on Feb 21, 2014 21:18:33 GMT
The reason for the change to Favored of Gruumsh was that the feat Epic feats cut into the already very limited list of Epic Monk Bonus Feats, so we were trying to pick feats that wouldn't get in the way of those. Armor Skin is one of the few Epic bonus feats that Monk can actually take. Certainly doesn't have to be power/great cleave though. I'm just not sure what you would put in its place.
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Post by Yojimbo on Feb 21, 2014 21:28:30 GMT
Doesn't have to be on Fallen, but certainly isn't doing any harm there, and may pave the way for interesting options in the future, especially as PDKs are likely due for some edits to make them a viable splash. Funky I like the sound of that last part I already have it splashed but it is a rare case where it works out as a reasonable even if not ideal/preferable splash.
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Post by kaezar on Feb 21, 2014 21:33:04 GMT
I see your point. I put Armor Skin for commonality of all Str monk builds. If that's a restriction, trade it for Epic Prowess. It is not on the monk epic feat list, and every tank takes it.
Take care Kaezar
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Post by jeanhelixü on Feb 24, 2014 23:13:50 GMT
Going to take another crack at this myself. First off the shifter race
"Lythari" / "Silver Shadow" (alt) (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Druid / BC: Shifter - CON +2, WIS +8, INT +2 - Free Feats: Great Wisdom I/II, WF: Unarmed, WS/EWS: Creature, WP: Martial, ESF: Animal Empathy - Other: +1 DC to Wildshape forms, Fast
3 of the 7 feats are worthless. The Weapon Specialization line doesn't get translated by shifting to the weapon type of the form so doesn't give benefit unless the form uses a creature weapon, and most of the forms you'd want to melee with use a weapon (all humanoid forms, the undead and construct forms that are designed for melee). The only ones this would benefit are dragon forms, which people don't use for melee anyways.
WP: Martial is worthless. One of the prime benefits of being a shifter (for melee) is you don't need to care about the crit range or multiplier on your weapon or focus in a particular type. You can already use any simple/druid weapon which allows you to cover all mega damage types if you really want to. So Martial is worthless.
WF: Unarmed is also only useful if you are building a melee shifter, while 90% of shifters are 'caster' versions. Though granted the weapon spec feats even if they worked would also only be good for melee shifters.
That leaves this with 3-4 feats, notably weaker than others. This could be resolved if weapon specs were added to the feaats that shifters convert to the weapon their form uses.
I'd also add Armor Skin since that's a more generally useful feat to replace WP: Martial and WF: Unarmed.
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Post by jeanhelixü on Feb 25, 2014 15:09:33 GMT
Another issue, why are there BFM and DSM races when they both use the same stats?
"Half-Djinni" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Sorcerer / BC: Dragon Disciple - DEX +2, INT +2, CHA +8, Lore +8, Persuade +8 - Free Feats: SF/GSF: Evocation, Maximize Spell, Empower Spell - Other: +1 DC on Evocation spells, Survival: Levitation
"Half-Efreeti" (secret eXtremely Rare) - FC: Sorcerer / BC: Dragon Disciple - CON +2, INT +2, CHA +8, Lore +8, Persuade +8 - Free Feats: SF/GSF: Evocation, Maximize Spell, Empower Spell - Other: +1 DC on Evocation spells, Survival: Firewalking
These are nearly identical however Half-Efreeti is clearly inferior to half Djinni though. Levitation is useful in far far more areas than firewalking which the average player currently doesn't use at all. Additionally +2 dex is more valuable than +2 con. Dex gives +1 ac, +1 reflex, and has more common stat checks, while con gives +80hp and +1 fort. Deaths in HG are pretty much never dependent on hp, they're a result of instant death mechanics/disables and inflicts. Most inflicts and a lot of save vs death come from on hit abilities so +1 ac is quite useful, especially on bfm/dsm that tend to sit in the AC range where each increment makes the maximum difference.
Half-Efreeti has no purpose, it's merely a slightly inferior version of Half-Djinni that people will only use as a result of not yet having Half-Djinni.
Next up, the stormlord race:
"Half-Storm Archon" (secret eXtremely Rare; adds wings) Elf - BC: Druid - DEX +6, WIS +4, INT +4 - Free Feats: Weapon Finesse, Epic Prowess, Extend Spell, SF/GSF: Transmutaion - Other: +50% Electrical Immunity, Survival: Levitation
Druids do not get Listen as a class skill. Since LSA listen is limited to half elves they can't take it either. Lack of listen on a tank is crippling. So likely will have to splash monk at level 40 and get 43 listen, then spend 60 more points to max it with able learner. This is a major loss to the subrace as it effectively is equivalent to -2 int. Further, since it only gets BC:Druid, a typical build with 4 paladin pre epic for 16 bab and 1 monk at level 40 will eat an xp penalty. Though the xp penalty will also be an issue on the BClr race Half-Sword Archon so maybe its intended that caster tanks eat xp penalties.
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Post by Raj on Feb 25, 2014 15:14:43 GMT
The only good thing of having both subraces is that they both work good for a standard sorc, more chances to upgrade But yes, they too similar indeed; if it could be scripted around, a +2 dc to fire or elec spells would help differentiate them, no big priority anyway imo.
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Post by jeanhelixü on Feb 25, 2014 15:30:20 GMT
Next up the large divine tank:
"Ibixian" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance) - FC: Paladin / BCs: Champion of Torm, Blackguard - STR +8, DEX -4, CON +6, CHA +2, Intimidate +4 - Free Feats: Weapon Proficiency Exotic, Great Smite I-III, Armor Skin, Toughness, Alertness - Other: Changes size to Large, Fast, +2 vs KD checks
This seems like an utterly worthless race. +16 bonus to stats and -4 penalty. However as I mentioned earlier Dex is worth way more than Con. So this is at best equivalent to a +10 point race. The dex penalty on this is absolutely crushing in any hells+ area you'd constantly be dom by erinyes or KD by things you didn't even realize forced checks. +2 vs KD checks is not going to make up -4 vs all checks. Large size loses another 1 AC so you're going to be hurting even more. Further +2 cha only is going to make it more difficult to reach useful cha for smites anyways. Carpet tank race. If making a large size tank is some sort of obsession, then using Dracotaur is a better answer even for a paladin, Smites wouldn't be very good on the Ibixian anyways so giving them up and going Dracotaur for better dex is a better option. If your obsession extends to a smiting large size race, Half-Cloud Giant is the answer:
"Half-Cloud Giant" (secret Beyond UltraRare; changes Appearance) - FC: Paladin - STR +4, DEX -2, CON +2, CHA +6, free feat: Great Strength 1, free feat Great Strength 2, free feat: Weapon Proficiency Exotic, levitation, increases character size to large, speaks Giant,
It gives less dex penalty, way more cha, and just 2 less strength. Since -1 ab isn't that big a concern and cha gives more damage than strength for a divine tank this is better melee damage than Ibixian as well. More feat tight but that's not that big an issue. It also throws in the ever useful levitation.
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Post by excruciator on Feb 25, 2014 15:42:30 GMT
"Verdant Prince" (secret eXtremely Rare; changes Appearance - antlers and glowing eyes) - FC: Druid - DEX +2, CON +2, WIS +8 - Free Feats: Great Wisdom I/II, SF/GSF: Transmutaion, SF: Divination, Dodge, Toughness - Other: Environmental Penalties reduced by 2 levels if outdoors, Survival: Treewalk
At the moment this race is extremely pigeonholed. Divination is a nice, albeit peripheral school for Druid. It is not useful for any druid not wishing to take divination foci, which I would estimate is the majority of Druids. I would suggest the free SF: Divination gets changed to SF: Evo or Spell Penetration. Either choice would be no brainer feats every Druid would want to take and would result in the race being optimal for the majority of caster Druid builds.
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