The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

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Essence
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The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

Post by Essence »

Version 1.3

Here is the first of what will be several classes wherein the class that evolved through my tinkering is 100% totally different from the base class that started it. This class is based on the Arsenalist from Legends and Lairs’ book, Path of Magic. Originally it was a caster that knew how to make and use guns. 18 revisions later, it’s probably the class that looks the most different from it’s original incarnation…as in, it kept absolutely nothing. :happy:

Some of the mechanics that I use in my game are coming out here (of course, many will). In this case, I’ve stolen from Monte Cook the idea of dividing Exotic weapons into groups, and allowing a single Exotic proficiency to give you access to the entire group. In this case, the groups are
  • Exotic (agile), which is anything designed to be wielded in a fast and whirly manner
  • Exotic (heavy), which is anything designed to be wielded in a crush-and-rend manner
  • Exotic (double), which is all double weapons
  • Exotic (ranged) weapons, which is anything not a gun, bomb, or cannon that cannot be used in melee
  • Exotic (firearm) weapons, which are guns, bombs, and cannons
  • Siege weapons, which are huge machines that deal massive damage and have a delay of Xd4 rounds before they can be fired/swung again.


This class can be used in any other game simply by dividing Exotic weapons up into the same groupings that the Martial weapons are divided up into: one handed, reach, two-handed, double, ranged (or some such.)

Also on a mechanical side note, the [combat] descriptor mentioned under the Bonus Feats ability is simply the descriptor I tack onto any feat that a Fighter is allowed to take as a bonus feat.


ARSENALIST

Alignment: Any.

Hit Die: d8.

Class Skills: The arsenalist’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are: Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), Craft (Int), Disable Device (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (Int), Listen (Wis), Open Lock (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spot (Wis).
Skill Points: (4 + Int modifier)

BAB: High

Saves: Reflex high, Fort and Will low.


Class Features by Level:

Code: Select all

[br] 1 Weapon type focus[br] 2 Poised strike[br] 3 Forge personal weapons, bonus damage +1[br] 4 Precision 5%, bonus feat[br] 5 Accuracy (-1)[br] 6 Weapon type focus, bonus damage +2[br] 7 Weapon swap[br] 8 Precision (10%), enchant personal weapons[br] 9 Bonus feat, bonus damage +3[br]10 Accuracy (-2)[br]11 Weapon type focus[br]12 Precision (15%), take advantage, bonus damage +4[br]13 Precision critical (5%, x2), awaken personal weapons[br]14 Bonus feat[br]15 Accuracy (-3), bonus damage +5[br]16 Weapon type focus, precision (20%)[br]17 Personalize weapon[br]18 Precision critical (10%, x3), imbue personal weapons, bonus damage +6[br]19 Bonus feat, true strike[br]20 Accuracy (-4), precision (25%), improved take advantage[br]


Class Features
All of the following are class features of the arsenalist.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: An arsenalist is proficient with all weapons, light armor, and no shields.
Weapon Type Focus (Ex): At 1st level, and again every 5th level beyond 1st (6th, 11th, and 16th), an arsenalist may select one category of weapons from the following list. He gains +1 to attack rolls made with weapons from that category. Weapons that fit into multiple categories (for example, a bastard sword could be used one or two-handed) only gain the bonus when used in the appropriate manner. Having Weapon Type Focus in a type of weapons counts as having Weapon Focus in every weapon of that type for the purposes of meeting feat prerequisites and prestige class requirements, but this ability stacks with the Weapon Focus feat.
Unarmed strikes: all weapons that count as unarmed strikes.
Simple weapons: all Simple weapons except those that count as unarmed strikes
One-handed martial melee weapons: all Martial melee weapons without the Reach ability that the arsenalist can wield in one hand.
Martial reach weapons: all Martial melee weapons with the Reach ability.
Two-handed martial melee weapons: all Martial melee weapons without the Reach ability that the arsenalist can wield in two hands and are not double weapons.
Martial double weapons: all Martial double weapons.
Martial ranged weapons: all Martial ranged weapons.
Exotic (agile) weapons: all Exotic (agile) weapons.
Exotic (heavy) weapons: all Exotic (heavy) weapons.
Exotic (double) weapons: all Exotic (double) weapons.
Exotic (ranged) weapons: all Exotic (ranged) weapons except Exotic (firearm) weapons.
Exotic (firearm) weapons: all Exotic (firearm) weapons.
Siege weapons: all Siege weapons.
Bonus Damage (Ex): Arsenalists gain a damage bonus on all weapon damage rolls made with weapons that the arsenalist’s weapon type focus ability applies to. This bonus is +1 at 3rd level, and increases by 1 every 3rd level thereafter.
Poised Strike (Ex): Arsenalists of 2nd level or higher gain the ability to voluntarily accept a penalty to AC up to their base AC (usually 10), but no more than their BAB, for one full round in order to gain a bonus to all melee attack rolls for that round. This ability must be activated at the beginning of the arsenalist’s turn.
Forge Personal Weapons (Ex): Arsenalists of 3rd level or higher gain the ability to forge any number of personal weapons – weapons made to precisely fit the fighting style and needs of the arsenalist. The arsenalist gains a +1 insight bonus to attack and damage rolls when wielding a personal weapon, and anyone other than the arsenalist takes a –1 circumstance penalty to attack and damage rolls when wielding an arsenalist’s personal weapon. Forging personal weapons requires the use of the Craft (weaponsmithing) skill. A personal weapon, much like a masterwork weapon, has an additional cost that must be crafted separately from the base cost of the weapon: 500 gp. A personal weapon can be a masterwork weapon or not; the two qualities are independent of one another.
Precision (Ex): 4th level arsenalists have a 5% chance per four character levels of hitting an opponent even if their attack roll would miss them normally. This chance is reduced by and reduces any miss chance the opponent has operating over him. This ability does not function if the arsenalist’s attack roll is a natural 1, and it can under no circumstance be raised beyond 50%. An opponent with full concealment who has his concealment reduced by this ability does not become visible; the arsenalist must still guess where that opponent is. Similarly, an opponent who has had his concealment reduced to 0% or less by this ability is still unable to be the target of a sneak attack by the arsenalist.
Bonus Feat (Ex): At 4th level, and again every 5 levels beyond 4th, an arsenalist gains a bonus feat with the [combat] descriptor.
Accuracy (Ex): From 5th level onward, an arsenalist can ignore one point of penalty on his attack rolls, regardless of the source of the penalty. This ability allows the arsenalist to ignore one additional point of penalty per 5 levels, thus at 10th level the arsenalist can ignore two points of penalties on his attack rolls, and so on.
Weapon Swap (Ex):: An arsenalist of 7th level and above no longer provokes an attack of opportunity by sheathing a weapon. In addition, if the arsenalist possesses the Quick Draw feat, he may sheathe a weapon as a free action.
Enchant Personal Weapons (Su): At 8th level and beyond, an arsenalist gains the Craft Magic Arms and Armor feat as a bonus feat even if he does not meet the prerequisites, and can mimic any spell which has a spell level equal to or less than half the arsenalist’s character level for the purposes of creating magical weapons and armor. The arsenalist can only enchant his personal weapons in this manner. The arsenalist cannot create intelligent or cursed weapons in this manner.
Take Advantage (Ex): Arsenalists of 12th level or higher may, when making a critical-confirmation roll against a flat-footed opponent, choose whether to accept the number they rolled, or to take 10 in it’s place. At 20th level, they may choose to accept the number rolled or to take 15 in it’s place.
Awaken Personal Weapons (Su): An arsenalist of 13th level and beyond can create intelligent weapons using his Enchant Personal Weapons ability, and can add intelligence to any personal weapon he has already forged and enchanted by spending the normal amount of time, XP, and gold.
Precision Critical (Ex): An arsenalist of 13th level gains a 5% chance per successful attack of that attack being a critical hit even if his attack roll did not fall within his weapon's threat range or if his critical-confirmation roll failed to match or beat his opponent's AC. Any critical hit triggered by this ability treats the arsenalist's weapon as though it had a critical multiplier of x2, regardless of the weapon's actual critical multiplier and of any abilities the arsenalist has regarding his weapon's critical multiplier. This chance to critical increases by 5% per 5 character levels beyond 13th, to a maximum of 50%. At 18th level, any critical hit caused by this ability treats the weapon as though it's critical multiplier were x3 rather than x2.
Personalize Weapon (Ex): An arsenalist of 17th level or higher can spend one week making minor modifications to a weapon that he did not forge, and re-balance and re-tune it to fit his fighting style, effectively making the weapon a personal weapon, as though the arsenalist had forged it himself for that purpose. This requires a Craft (weaponsmithing) check (DC 20 +1 per 10,000 gp of the weapon’s value); failure on this check means only that the arsenalist wasted a week. The attempt can be made again, and there is no penalty for doing so.
Imbue Personal Weapons (Ex): At 18th level, an arsenalist can attempt to add short-term additional enchantments to a personal weapon. By spending one full round action, the arsenalist can designate any weapon enchantment that has an enhancement-equivalent value, and then make a Craft (weaponsmithing) check (DC 20 plus the square of the enchantment’s value). The amount by which the Craft check exceeds the DC is the number of rounds that the designated enchantment remains in effect on the arsenalist’s weapon. If the Craft check fails to meet the DC by more than 5 points, the weapon’s normal enchantments are temporarily disrupted, and the weapon’s enhancement bonus is halved (round down) for a number of rounds equal to the amount by which the Craft check failed.
True Strike (Sp): At 19th level, an arsenalist learns to use the spell-like ability True Strike as a free action a number of times per day equal to his Intelligence modifier, but no more than once per round.



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Re: The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

Post by Username17 »

BAB? I'm assuming it is excellent (1 per level), but you don't actually say.

Accuracy is exactly the same as bonuses to-hit. In fact, since the character will almost certainly have Power Attack - it is exactly the same as bonus damage. And it's cumulative.

Impact Control is pretty lame - considering how easy it is to get that penalty completely eliminated in only one level or less - so I don't see this class really building up to anything amazing.

What I do see is that at 5th level you essentialy get +2 damage, while at level 10 and 15 you are only getting half that - so if the class is balanced in the first 5 levels it is definately underpowered in the third five levels.

Each consecutive Weapon Type focus is definitionally worth less than the first one, so if getting the first one is worth a level, getting the second one should come with an additional benefit.

I really don't see more than 10 levels worth of abilities here - perhaps you should ask yourself why you are making it 20 levels long in the first place....

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Re: The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

Post by Maj »

Because he likes pretty numbers of classes? Image
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Re: The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

Post by Essence »

Frank wrote:BAB? I'm assuming it is excellent (1 per level), but you don't actually say.


You got it.


Frank wrote:Each consecutive Weapon Type focus is definitionally worth less than the first one,


The class is balanced with that in mind.


Frank wrote:so if getting the first one is worth a level, getting the second one should come with an additional benefit.


Every single class in the game has some levels stronger than others, and I've gotten over thinking that that is a problem. The class is balanced to come out after 20 levels on par with each of the other classes I'm going to post, and I've tried to backload each of them to some degree. In this case, it's not much of a degree, however, because Impact Control sucks so much. I'm not sure what I was smoking when I decided that was a good ability given its place.


Frank wrote:Impact Control is pretty lame - considering how easy it is to get that penalty completely eliminated in only one level or less - so I don't see this class really building up to anything amazing.


This is true. I'm going to replace Impact Control with a different ability of about the same power level, but more coherent alongside the class' other abilities.

How about:

Precision Critical (Ex): An arsenalist of 13th level gains a 5% chance per attack of being a critical hit even if his attack roll did not fall within his weapon's threat range or if his critical-confirmation roll failed to match or beat his opponent's AC. Any critical hit triggered by this ability treats the arsenalist's weapon as though it had a critical multiplier of x2, regardless of the weapon's actual critical multiplier and of any abilities the arsenalist has regarding his weapon's critical multiplier. This chance to critical increases by 5% per 5 character levels beyond 13th, to a maximum of 50%. At 18th level, any critical hit caused by this ability treats the weapon as though it's critical multiplier were x3 rather than x2.


Is that an acceptable mechanic in pure mechanical terms?
If so, does it give the class something to grow towards?


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Re: The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

Post by Username17 »

OK, here's he level by level. Note that I consider a damage bonus to be equivalent to a to-hit bonus:

1st: +2 (switching to an exotic weapon is worth about +1 damage)
2nd: +1
3rd: +1
4th: Very weird ability here. It is either much less than a +1 to-hit or much more than a +1 to-hit, depending upon whether your opponent has full concealment or not. Remember, however, that if you would hit on an 11+, that this gives you a bonus 5% chance to hit only 45% of the time (ie.: only on a roll of 2 through 10 do you get a 5% chance to hit). A reall +1 to-hit would give you a 5% extra chance to hit on the intial roll. So I see this ability as being worth considerably less than +1 to-hit.
5th:+2
6th: Less than +1 again.
7th: Hard to quantify - as this ability depends largely upon how much you intend to move and/or fight creatures with obscure damage reduction abilities in melee.
8th: About +1.5
9th: About +1 with 3.5 feats.
10th: +1
11th: Less than the last level that was worth less than +1.
12th: +1.5
13th: About +1/3 or so.
14th: About +1
15th: +1
16th: Nearly +1 total.
17th: +1
18th: About +1/3 again.
19th: About +1 again.
20th: About +1.5


So here's the average bonus per level when you've taken various total levels of this class:

1st: +2
2nd: +1.5
3rd: +1.3
4th: +1.12
5th: +1.3
6th: +1.2
7th: +1.18 (being generous here)
8th: +1.22
9th: +1.19
10th: +1.18
11th: +1.11
12th: +1.15
13th: +1.08
14th: +1.08
15th: +1.07
16th: +1.06
17th: +1.06
18th: +1.02
19th: +1.02
20th: +1.04

So the class fairly consistently gives less per level the farther you go in it. And since the biggest drop is from the first level to the second level, why would anyone take the second level of this class?

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Re: The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

Post by Essence »

Frank wrote:Note that I consider a damage bonus to be equivalent to a to-hit bonus:


OK. I have been considering a damage bonus to be worth 1/2 of a to-hit bonus (the ratio established in the core books by the existance of the feats Weapon Focus and Weapon Specialization.) This just exacerbates the problem (by making 1st level worth a +3 damage bonus, and thus the drop from 1st to 2nd level even bigger).


Frank wrote:why would anyone take the second level of this class?


The barbarian certainly doesn't offer as much increased damage-throughput potential at 2nd or 3rd level as it does at 1st, but people frequently take the barbarian up to 5th level or higher.

Your logic rapidly creates a trap in which *every* level of a class has to offer identical or higher bonus damage as the previous levels in order to avoid being dropped...and at that point, you might as well basically just make two or three classes that say "this class gives you X bonus damage per level to attacks" "this class gives you X bonus damage per level to offensive spells", etc.

A player might take this class past 1st level because:

  • He intends to pursue a fighting style that involves inflicting to-hit penalties on himself, and Accuracy is a good way to allieviate those penalties.
  • He is building toward a sniper-type character and the abilities of this class are geared directly toward hitting shots that might otherwise be impossible.
  • His character is intended to play the roles of party tank and party trap-finder/disabler, and he needs something stronger in melee than Rogue but with the necessary skills. (Assume he has a single level of Rogue for trapfinding just for the sake of argument. )
  • He strongly wants to obtain a second Weapon Type Focus so that he can apply his bonus damage to both a ranged and a melee weapon.


That's off the top of my head. There are an equal or greater number of reasons why a character would take some other class at Xth level instead of the next level of Arsenalist, but that argument can be made for every non-caster class.


Now, that having been said, you're right: the class is too weak, and it's lacking in interesting later-level abilities. I've been overvaluing Precision, because I forgot to take into account that it only really came into play when your normal attack roll missed (something that should happen for this class even less than it happens for a Fighter or a Barbarian.) I'm going to retool it a little bit and repost it later today with some attractive abilities backloaded a bit. :smile:


And Frank -- thanks. I know you've got finals on Monday, and I'm surprised that you're still doing math on my account. So, thanks. That said, good luck on your finals. :wink:


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Re: The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

Post by Essence »

Wow...I recalculated the Arsenalist taking Frank's points into account, and I came up 8 feat-equivalents shy of a balanced class. That's a lot...apparently not only was I overvaluing Precision, but I did not, in fact, count each iteration of Weapon Type Focus as less than the last. :frown:

The class should look significantly different when I repost it, which will probably be late this evening.


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Re: The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

Post by Username17 »

By the way, if you want to get technical, the relative value of to-hit vs. damage depends upon hom much of each you already have.

So, for example, +1 to-hit makes you hit 1/Xth more often, where X is the amount of numbers you already hit on, and when that happens you inflict Y more damage - where Y is the total average damage you inflict per hit. The total bonus to the amount of times you critical is proportional - so remember to multiply your average damage by the critical factor before plugging it in to Y.

Meanwhile, a +1 to damage inflicts one/Yth more damage every single time you hit, which means that your average damage per attack will increase proportionally by X/Y.

So once you put it into X and Y (where X is the amount of numbers off the d20 you hit on, and Y is the amount of average damage per hit) - +1 to-hit adds Y/X, and +1 to damage adds X/Y.

So which ones is better will depend entirely upon which one is larger. To-hit chances are capped at 19 - and damage definately is not - so in the long run to-hit would seem to be larger except that when you run into the 19 cap it's actually adding zero to your chance to-hit, so YMMV.

For an example of this in action:

A Fighter at first level with an 18 strength and Longsword (19-20 crit, d8 damage):

Attack Bonus: +5, damage per hit 9.35.

If he's up against an AC of 16, he's hitting on 10 numbers, and doing 9.35 damage - so a damage bonus is larger. If he's up against an AC of 17, he's hitting on 9 numbers and doing 9.35 damage - so a to-hit bonus is bigger.

It's that simple.

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Re: The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

Post by Essence »

Thanks for that bit of insight, Frank. That totally makes sense.

I edited the original post to add new abilities and bring it into line with what it should have been. I want the class to have the schtick of making it's own weapons and making lots of them for a variety of situations (you know, to live up to the name arsenalist) in addition to it's original schtick of being the fighting class that has the easiest time actually hitting it's targets. I hope I've done that while providing a reason to stick with the class all the way.


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Re: The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

Post by Username17 »

Note, that the above assumes that it is a flat +1 to damage - like the Fire from an Azer or a sneak attack die (although that would be 3.5 damage, it works the same). If it's normal damage - and gets multiplied on criticals and spirited charges - don't add in the multipliers before comparing to-hits and damage.

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Re: The Arsenalist (Ess' project: class #2)

Post by Essence »

One last update before I post the Barbarian.

I added some explanatory text to Precision, added a BAB limit to Poised Strike, and changed the rate at which bonus damage was gained to make it more regular.


Thanks for your input and insight!


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