The Zodiac Warrior: My Take on a Shapechanging Martial Class

[Nihlin]

The bold and italic text was lost, unfortunately, but I think the rest of the formatting was preserved. Whatcha think?

Zodiac Warrior
"No, actually, 'Dragon Snaps His Tail' isn't a metaphor."

[Class Description goes here]

Alignment: Zodiac Warriors may be of any alignment, and there haven't been enough of them to make any particular statements about their tendencies beyond that.

Races: Anyone can become a Zodiac Warrior. Probably. Again, bad statistics...

Starting Gold: 6d4x10 gp (150 gold)

Starting Age: As Barbarian

Hit Die: d12
Class Skills: The Zodiac Warrior’s skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge: Nature (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).

Skills/Level: 4 + Intelligence Bonus
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex Poor; Will: Poor

Level, Benefit
1 Zodiac Forms, Primal Defense, Dragon Snaps His Tail
2 Tiger Defends His Honor, Thieving Monkey
3 The Tail is Law, Man's Best Friend
4 The Tiger Leaps, Cock of the Walk
5 Yield Before the Dragon, Snake Sheds His Skin
6 Tiger Finds the Marrow, Horse Never Tires
7 The Dragon Soars Above, Dragon Goes with Grace, Happy Truth Spores
8 Tiger Catches the Shadow, Protection of the Ancestors
9 Dragon Clears the Way, Hermit Brings His House
10 Tiger Eats the Unnatural, Mother-Weaver Spider
11 Dragon Banishes the Impure, Gift of the Mountain Lords
12 Quake Before the Tiger, Perfection of the Body

All of the following are Class Features of the Zodiac Warrior class:
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Zodiac Warriors are proficient with all simple weapons and the natural weapons of their various forms. Zodiac Warriors are not proficient with any armor or shields of any kind.

Zodiac Forms (Su): The signature ability of the Zodiac Warrior is to assume the form and abilities of the creatures of the Zodiac at will. Changing form requires a standard action and doesn't provoke an Attack of Opportunity. When you use this ability, your armor and weapons, magic or otherwise, are absorbed into your body, as are your mundane clothes and any other non-magical items worn. At your option, any other magic items worn may also be absorbed into your body. Any items so absorbed become nonfunctional until you return to your base form, whereupon they reappear as they were originally and resume normal function.

You assume the form of the Zodiac creature, freely specifying its physical traits within the typical limits of the species, and your functioning magical items appear as appropriate to your new form. You can still talk while in Zodiac Form... somehow. You gain a +10 bonus on Disguise checks made to impersonate an actual member of the species, as well as the bonuses and alterations listed below:

• Monkey - tiny size, speed 30', climb 30', -2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, 1d3 bite attack. +4 to Sleight of Hand checks.
• Dog - small size, speed 40', +2 Strength, 1d4 bite attack.
• Horse - large size, speed 60', +4 Strength, 1d4 hoof attack.
• Snake - small size, speed 20', climb 10', +2 Dexterity, 1d4 bite attack plus poison (primary and secondary damage 1d4 Str).
• Rooster - tiny size, speed 20', fly 20' clumsy (must land before end of turn, fatigues as though running), -2 Strength, 1d3 claw attack
• Spider - tiny size, speed 20', -2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, 1d3 bite attack plus poison (primary and secondary damage 1d3 Dex). Climbs as though affected by Spider Climb.
• Hitodama ("Human soul", a spirit of the recently departed) - tiny size, fly 30' perfect (but must remain within 5' of ground or floor), -2 Strength, +4 Dexterity, 1d3 melee touch attack
• Reikar - (a white super-genius spell-casting mountain goat) - large size, speed 40', +4 strength, cold resistance 10, 1d4 hoof attack.
• Giant Crab! - large size, speed 40', +4 strength, amphibious, 1d4 claw attack
• Shrieker - small size, speed 0' (cannot move, affected as though paralyzed, but may be carried), can make an incredibly loud monotone shriek for far, far too long.
• Tiger - special
⁃ At level 1: medium size, 40' speed, +2 Strength, bite attack and two claw attacks. These natural weapon attacks deal 1d4 damage each, plus your strength modifier.
⁃ At level 4: large size, 60' speed, +6 Strength, +4 Dexterity, +4 natural armor. Base natural weapon damage increases to 1d6.
⁃ At level 6: gain Multiattack as a bonus feat while in Tiger form.
⁃ At level 8: Strength bonus increases to +8, natural armor increases to +6.
⁃ At level 12: Strength bonus increases to +12, size increases to huge at your option.
• Dragon - special
⁃ At level 1: medium size, 40' speed, +2 Dexterity, 1d6 bite attack (+ 1.5 Strength modifier).
⁃ At level 5: large size, 60' speed, +4 Strength, +8 Dexterity. Bite damage increases to 1d8.
⁃ At level 7: size increases to huge at your option.
⁃ At level 11: Dexterity bonus increases to +12, size increases to gargantuan at your option.

Primal Defense (Su): A Zodiac Warrior has a special Armor bonus whenever he is not using armor or shields that he is not proficient in. This Armor Bonus applies against Touch Attacks and Incorporeal Touch Attacks, and has a value of +4. Every even numbered class level, this value increases by 1. (copied nearly whole from the Frank and K monk)

Dragon Snaps His Tail (Ex): The dragon's tail is a fearsome weapon. While in Dragon form, you may make a tail snap attack as a standard action. This is otherwise a melee weapon attack that deals 1d6 of damage per character level plus your strength modifier.

Tiger Defends His Honor (Ex): You have learned the lesson that the tiger's indomitable spirit is tied to the vigor of its body. At 2nd level, while in any Zodiac form, you may use your Fortitude Save in place of your Willpower Save.

Thieving Monkey (Su): Damned monkey! At 2nd level, when in Monkey form, all allies within 30' benefit from a +4 bonus on Sleight of Hand checks.

The Tail is Law (Su): At 3rd level, the dragon's tail becomes studded in all manner of wondrous materials. When using your tail snap attack, you ignore all damage reduction and hardness.

Man's Best Friend (Su): People like dogs. At 3rd level, when in Dog form, all allies within 30' benefit from a +4 bonus on diplomacy checks for the purpose of interacting with humanoids.

The Tiger Leaps (Ex): At 4th level, you learn to make devastating pouncing attacks. While in Tiger form, you may make a full attack rather than a single attack at the end of a charge, and you gain an additional 2 claw attacks when you do so as your leap brings your hindclaws into action.

Cock of the Walk (Su): The proud rooster has the respect of many creatures. When in Rooster form, you may make yourself understood by any animal or magical beast as though you shared a language, and all allies within 30' benefit from a +4 bonus on diplomacy checks for the purpose of interacting with such creatures.

Yield Before the Dragon (Su): Few can withstand the dragon's tail. At 5th level, any opponent struck by your tail snap attack must make a Fortitude Save (DC 10 + ½ your character level + your Wisdom Modifier) or become stunned for one round.

Snake Sheds His Skin (Su): You have learned the secret by which the snake is born anew. At 5th level, when in Snake form, you may spend an hour in an arduous process of growing a new skin and casting off your old. You may not engage in any other activity during this time, and are treated as though dazed for the duration. You may end the process prematurely only by changing into a different Zodiac form, which wastes any time spent on this process. At the end of the hour, when you emerge in your new skin, you recover from all injury and afflictions, including hit point damage, nonlethal damage, ability damage, ability drain, and all negative status effects, and all allies within 30' may either recover all ability damage to one ability score or remove one negative status effect currently afflicting them (each ally chooses separately).

This effect may not remove any effect that specifically requires a wish or similar effect to remove.

Tiger Finds the Marrow (Ex): The furious onslaught of the tiger leaves terrible wounds. At 6th level, while in Tiger form, for every 2 natural attacks you hit an opponent with during your turn, you automatically deal a rending attack for 2 points of Constitution damage. For example, if you hit an enemy with 4 attacks during a charge, this ability triggers twice for a total of 4 points of Constitution damage.

Horse Never Tires (Su): The horse's stalwart labor inspires others. At 6th level, when in Horse form, all allies within 30' benefit from immunity to fatigue.

The Dragon Soars Above (Su): At 7th level, the dragon takes to the air. When in Dragon form, you gain a flight speed equal to your land speed with average maneuverability. At 9th level, you gain a 30' insight bonus to your speed when flying, and this bonus increases to 60' at 11th level.

Dragon Goes with Grace (Su): You have learned the lesson that dragon's astonishing motion comes not from vigor or force, but rather control. While in any Zodiac form, you may use your Fortitude Save in place of your Reflex Save.

Happy Truth Spores (Ex): Some fungi are useful for more than just waste-powered burglar alarms. At 7th level, while in Shrieker form, you may release a cloud of spores. This action requires one minute to perform. All creatures within 30' must make a Fortitude Save (DC 10 + ½ your character level + your Wisdom Modifier) or become affected as by a zone of truth spell. These effects last 5 minutes, is a mind-affecting effect, and is treated as an inhaled poison.

Tiger Catches the Shadow (Ex): The tiger's claws and teeth are platonic ideals. At 8th level, your natural attacks in Tiger form become force effects and deal force damage.

Protection of the Ancestors (Su): Hitodama often linger in the material world to grant aid. At 8th level, When in Hitodama form, you may radiate a Protection from Evil or Protection from Good effect as the spell. Beginning or ending this effect is a free action.

Dragon Clears the Way (Su): The sweep of the dragon's tail leaves none in its wake. At 9th level, an enemy hit with your tail snap attack is also affected with the violent thrust version of telekinesis, with a caster level equal to your character level. There is no saving throw against this effect.

Hermit Brings His House (Sp): At 9th level, you learn to carry a glorious dwelling with you as the hermit crab does. Once per day as a spell-like ability, while in Giant Crab! form, you may cast Magnificent Mansion with a caster level equal to your character level.

Tiger Eats the Unnatural (Su): The tiger's teeth and claws rend more than simply flesh and bone. At 10th level, whenever your Tiger Finds the Marrow rending attack, the opponent is also affected with a targeted-version greater dispelling with a caster level equal to your character level.

Mother-Weaver Spider (Sp): At 10th level, you learn the secret of weaving silk stronger than steel. Once per day as a spell-like ability, while in Spider form, you may cast Wall of Iron with a caster level equal to your character level, but the substance produced has the hardness and hit points of adamantium and may be either rigid or as supple as worked leather. You may fashion this substance into a complex item at the time of casting, such as a sword or a suit of armor; doing so requires a Craft check. In any case, the substance lasts 24 hours and then dissolves completely.

Dragon Banishes the Impure (Su): The dragon enforces the celestial law. At 11th level, any creature struck with your tail snap attack is affected with a banishment effect that transports it back to its home plane unless it succeeds at a Will save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier). Outsiders suffer a -4 penalty to their saving throw. A creature so banished may not return to the plane it was banished from for a year.

Gift of the Mountain Lords (Sp): At 11th level, you learn one of the mysteries by which the Reikar maintain their mountain kingdoms. Once per day as a spell-like ability, while in Reikar form, you may cast Heroes' Feast with a caster level equal to your character level.

Quake Before the Tiger (Su): At 12th level, the Zodiac Warrior's prowess awakes a primal fear within all who come close. When in Tiger form, you may roar a fearsome challenge as a swift action and gain the benefit of this effect for one round. During this duration, any enemies within 10 feet of you must make a Will save (DC 10 + ½ character level + Wisdom Modifier) or become panicked for one minute.

Perfection of the Body (Su): At 12th level, the Zodiac Warrior gains sufficient control of his physical form to ignore a variety of harms. He is now immune to nonlethal damage, death effects, stunning, critical hits, poison, negative levels, and ability damage (but not ability drain). He no longer accrues aging penalties and has no maximum age.

[Nihlin]

The game is only going to 12th level, and begins at 6th, so that's the key area of interest. Hence no levels after 12th

[Nihlin]

Also, there's obviously quite a bit here borrowed from the Frank & K monk and barbarian.

[RiotGearEpsilon]

I personally can't wrap my mind around Thieving Monkey. How does it work, conceptually?

I feel like the Tail Snap and Tiger Claw abilities stack too high - rather than gaining a broader selection of tactically interesting hammers, you simply gain more and more super hammers.

[Nihlin]

I feel like the Tail Snap and Tiger Claw abilities stack too high - rather than gaining a broader selection of tactically interesting hammers, you simply gain more and more super hammers.

Thanks for the feedback.

Tail-Snapping is basically an at-will, short-range evocation spell. It's pretty good as an evocation spell goes, since you're eventually stunning, moving people around, and maybe banishing someone, but you're not doing it more than once a round. I dunno.

As for the tiger, you've got the attack routine and the hit chance of a flask-throwing rogue, but in melee and without the sneak attack dice.

Ultimately, I was trying to strike a balance between the raw damage of the barbarian and the status-tricks of a monk. I may have missed the balance, which is why I need to actually run a full Same Game test on it rather than some spot calculations.

[Nihlin]

Thinking about it more and looking at some more numbers at level 10, I'm starting to agree with the tail-snap scaling. I think I'm going to cut it back to being essentially a monk-style slam attack that hits almost anything and applies debuffs, but has basically static damage, and leave the tiger to be the brute force.

[Nihlin]

Some other conceptual questions that occur to me:

Why is damage scaling for Tiger form handled via strength bonuses rather than bonus d6s?

Do the minor zodiac forms really need to alter stats?

[CatharzGodfoot]

What do you think of changing Zodiac Form to a swift action at some point? I think that choosing your form dynamically rather than having it as a prepared ability would add a lot to tactical depth.

Also, you have way too many forms to keep track of as a first level character, and most of them aren't useful until later (or become mostly useless). If you gave out a single form per level, you could keep all of the abilities together (with the exception of the two combat forms).

Another option would be to grant two forms every odd level, and add additional goodies every even level. So at first level you have Tiger and Monkey, and at second you gain Thieving Monkey and Tiger Defends His Honor.

Or you could just give half the animals the finger and focus on a few zodiacal forms. Then give the abilities of other animals without granting the form. Monkey, Dragon, and Tiger seem pretty iconic. The Giant Crab! has a lot of potential too, although you've under-emphasized its potentially brutal combat abilities. I'd be sorry to see the Cock and the Horse go, but they honestly don't seem to add much. The Hitodama, White Goat, Dog, Spider, and Shrieker add even less.



Finally, tigers are large. Seriously. They're fucking gigantic cats.

[Nihlin]

Yeah, 12 forms right off the bat is simply too much, and several of them don't give you any real reason to use them aside from the spell they offer. At least walking around as a dog is likely to not arouse suspicion. I have no idea why you'd turn into a Reikar at all before the level you can cast heroes' feast.

Time to pull out the red pen.

Also, swift action transformation eventually sounds good, particularly when combined with a more tractable number of distinct forms.

[RiotGearEpsilon]

Also, you have way too many forms to keep track of as a first level character, and most of them aren't useful until later (or become mostly useless). If you gave out a single form per level, you could keep all of the abilities together (with the exception of the two combat forms).

I disagree. Just because they aren't useful in combat doesn't mean they don't add a great deal of lateral-thinking style problem solving options.

[Quantumboost]

Not really a balance issue, but...

Protection of the Ancestors (Su): Hitodama often linger in the material world to grant aid. At 8th level, When in Hitodama form, you may radiate a Protection from Evil or Protection from Good effect as the spell. Beginning or ending this effect is a free action.

Do you mean Magic Circle Against Good/Evil? Protection from Blah is a targeted spell, so I'm not sure what it means to "radiate" it.

[Nihlin]

Not really a balance issue, but...

Protection of the Ancestors (Su): Hitodama often linger in the material world to grant aid. At 8th level, When in Hitodama form, you may radiate a Protection from Evil or Protection from Good effect as the spell. Beginning or ending this effect is a free action.

Do you mean Magic Circle Against Good/Evil? Protection from Blah is a targeted spell, so I'm not sure what it means to "radiate" it.

Good catch.

[Bigode]

I suggest having all forms scale. Then you could hand 1/level. You might read this for inspiration, but it's not polished either.

[Prak]

well, let's look at it this way, the class is a shapeshifter at it's base, so while you want it to be martial, it's more a jack of all trades class, with each form contributing something different. So, and I'm usuing the actual eastern zodiac here, but these can be tweaked, and probably should be, for a fantasy game, we've got:

• Rat- sneak
• Ox- tank
• Monkey- sneak/thief, some mobility fro0m brachiation
• Dog- a jack of all trades for a jack of all trades, some social, some combat, some mobility, and it's really easy to steal and hide when no one pays attention to you anyway.
• Rooster- mobility, and deceptively good in combat, especially if you can turn into a horse sized one
• Goat/sheep- go with goat and it's a mixed mobility/combat form for low levels, go with sheep and I have no fucking clue.
• Dragon- The definition of a tank, mobility, artillary, melee, and high damage absorption
• Tiger- strafe melee
• Horse- mobility/scout
• Rabbit- mobility/stealth
• Snake- depends, but usually stealth/artillary or stealth/melee
• Boar- rage tank

these could be further deversified by adding in symbolically aligned abilities as you have done

[Nihlin]

well, let's look at it this way, the class is a shapeshifter at it's base, so while you want it to be martial, it's more a jack of all trades class, with each form contributing something different....

That's explicitly not what the player I'm making this for wants, actually, even though that's the standard shapechanger role in DnD.

The design goal is for one or at most two combat-viable forms, with the rest being minor things for non-combat occasions. That makes it simultaneously easier and harder, since the class fewer forms that matters in a fight but then we have to figure out why the rest matter at all.

That said, a jack-of-all-trades concept for non-combat situations might indeed be a viable setup, as opposed to a "living bard buff" sort of thing.

[Prak]

ah, well then might I suggest that each zodiac warrior chooses one combat and one minor form that they specifically turn into, with maybe the other forms handwaved ("okay, you're a cat, meow").

[Nihlin]

ah, well then might I suggest that each zodiac warrior chooses one combat and one minor form that they specifically turn into, with maybe the other forms handwaved ("okay, you're a cat, meow").

This is increasingly looking like the best idea to me, too.

[CatharzGodfoot]

The forms could function as stances, making the Zodiac Warrior into a type of Monk. Then each form has a combat-focused ability and a utility ability. Each form would also have a natural weapon or weapons, which would take the place of slam.

Each form could also have a size range rather than a set size, which makes rapid in-combat switches more continuous. So you charge into melee as a ram knocking one foe into the other, turn into a dragon and tail-slap them both, turn into a rat and HiPS, sneak attack with a poison snake bite, turn into a cock and feint/spur attack the other guy, turn into a boar because you've lost some serious HP and gore her, then turn into a horse to carry away your wounded friend and the loot you've just gained.

Oh yeah, and this is important: no stat adjustments. That would be a real pain in the ass with a quick-change setup.