Luckbringer Druid [D&D 3.5]

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Prak
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Post by Prak »

Sacrificial Lamb wrote:
Eikre wrote:Lamb, you're pretty transparently asking people to entertain your Elothar: Warrior of Bladereach base class. You're writing bespoke homebrew to match whatever personal preferences you have for the particular character you're playing right now. What kind of analysis are you expecting? As aggravated as you are about Kaelik's rude aggression in slapping the dicks out of your mouth, he still called it in his first post: Your DM probably isn't going to veto you, because you're trading good features for less-good features and that's not going to break his game. Does anything else matter?
I don't know who Elothar: Warrior of Bladereac is, but....ok. As far as expectations, I actually had no expectations at all. Various members of this site seem to possess some knowledge of D&D 3.5, so I felt that it might be good for someone else to evaluate the class.....and point out any glaring flaws.
sigh.
Start using the site search for this stuff.
[url=http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=28550#28550 wrote:Dungeonomicon[/url]]Elothar Warrior of Bladereach
"My name is Elothar. Your name is unimportant, for you shall soon be dead."

The city of Bladereach sits at the mouth of the Typhon River that flows from the Bane Mires into Ferrin's Bay. The elves of Celentian's caravan come every year to trade with the largely human inhabitants of Bladereach and sometimes they leave more than the wares of the Black Orchard Hills when they leave. The results of these dalliances find that they never fit in amongst the people of Bladereach, and are taught the hard secrets of battle that the children of Bladereach have to offer. Often, these half-elven warriors turn to adventuring.
---
We all know that 90% of PrCs are "Steve's Ninja of the Cresent Moon" rather than "Ninja of the Cresent Moon", a PrC intended for mass play.

The Elothar Warrior is our way of pointing out this fact. Lets face it: people don't even consider playing most PrCs. Not only do they have a very specific flavor, but they are usually intended to shore up the weaknesses of specific players and not their characters.

Just look at the Daggerspell Jag-offs in Complete Adventurer. That's one dude's hard-on for double daggers and not anything the average gamer even wants in his game (did we ever need double dagger arcane/druid wildshapers? Ever?).
sacrificiallamb wrote:My goal was absolutely not to create an entirely new class, but to instead create a variant that fit the needs of my campaign.

But instead, I had people continually implying that I should create an entirely new class from scratch, when that isn't what I want at all.
Ok, there's what you want to do, and there's what you want to have. What you want to do is just write up a quick variant, the end product you want to have, however, is basically an entirely new class with nothing to do with druids.
But no, I had absolutely no idea what type of response I would receive here, although I'll admit the hostility really surprised me. I know that there's some ball-busting on this site from time to time, but I didn't expect Kaelik's rabid foaming of the mouth, or Trollman's blatant attempt to derail and troll the thread with a pointless rant over his hatred of JangK's class Tier system, or any of the other bullshit in this thread.....that had little to do with an actual evaluation of the class.
Lurk moar.
Eikre wrote:If this is meant to be a contribution for serious consideration and widespread applicability, be advised: Without the inclusion of any real mechanical novelty, and without speaking to a theme that resonates more, your work is only another entry to the tall pile of pulpy Pathfinder-brand filler content. And, while it's true that lots of people are very interested to read that stuff, they only do so when it's official, thus meeting the constraints on the material they use for CharOp solitaire.
Why does a class variant require a large amount of "real mechanical novelty" when it fits the theme I'm looking for, provides the game mechanics I want, and handles smoothly in play?

Originality is nice, but it's largely overrated.
Because you're posting for a larger audience. If you just want to know if something is appropriate, then the post is really "Hey guys, what do you think of [removing the core thematic abilities of the druid] and replacing them with [a bunch of mechanically weaker things]?" Then we'll respond with variations of "Um. We don't know why you'd want to do that, but, sure, whatever. It's not like it makes you more powerful..." If you're posting for others' consumption, then the thing you post needs to have a theme that explains the existence of its abilities, and a reason to exist. Seriously, this variant has no reason to exist outside of the campaign you're playing in.
Eikre wrote:... do me a personal favor and stop writing a long-form document with all the copy/paste'd SRD content. Haven't you noticed how almost every variant is formatted exclusively as a list of the modified features? When you transcribe all the unmodified shit, you demand that the reader play a game of Find the Difference before he can make an evaluation, and it's a goddamned waste of time for anybody not sitting in a pediatrician's waiting room.
I don't know what I did wrong here. I believe in being thorough, so that there's no confusion on how the class functions. But for the sake of sanity, I'll try it your way in the future.
Thoroughness doesn't necessitate copy/pasta from the SRD, all you need to do is say "this variant has all the abilities of [base class] except where noted below" and then when an ability is replacing something say "this ability replaces [thing]."
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Post by Eikre »

Why does a class variant require a large amount of "real mechanical novelty" when it fits the theme I'm looking for, provides the game mechanics I want, and handles smoothly in play?
Because you posted it on a public board and expected people to be interested in it! Your class is fucking boring, dude. It has a target audience of exactly one person in the entire world, and that person is you, and we already know that it suits his needs. There is no design work to be done.

Are you baffled by the direction the conversation went in? You're trying to solve the riddle the wrong way: People didn't derail the conversation. Your work just didn't merit any conversation. Kaelik and Frank waded in and engaged you about JaronK horseshit because that's something they can have a discussion about. And other people came out to put up some ideas for building a class from scratch, because that's a project that actually sounds potentially worthwhile. Sorry if that wasn't amenable to the ego gratification you were looking for sike I'm not sorry at all
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Post by Prak »

Here's something closer to what you want, so far as I can tell-

Faewyrd
While many mortals gain access to the immense power of divine magic through supplication to higher powers, there are those who gain their power through becoming an agent of an unpersonified force. The most notable such mortals are druids, but there is no shortage of clerics who tap into their power through representing Valor or Disease, with no god between them and their power.

The Faewyrd taps into the primal abilities of fae kind, and bring forth the ability to bless their allies and curse their enemies through manipulation of luck. The Seelie and Unseelie regularly hunt these mortals, as they see this a sort of theft, and attempt to press them into one side or the other, but fae not aligned to one side of the war or the other don't much care for such hat-wearing.

[Cleric Variant]
The Faewyrd has all the abilities of a Cleric, except where noted below.

Spellcasting: The magics of fae aren't much concerned with wisdom or sagacity, and instead respond much more to how beautiful or fearsome one is. The Faewyrd's casting is based on Charisma instead of wisdom.

Spontaneous Casting: In addition to the ability to spontaneously heal, the faewyrd can channel the magic of fae to alter others' luck. The faewyrd may spontaneously cast any of the following spells:

0-cure minor wounds, guidance, resistance; 1st-bless, cure light wounds, feather fall; 2nd-aid, cure moderate wounds, lesser restoration; 3rd-cure serious wounds, prayer, remove curse; 4th-break enchantment, cure critical wounds, restoration; 5th-atonement, mass cure light wounds, raise dead; 6th-find the path, mass cure moderate wounds, heal; 7th-greater restoration, mass cure serious wounds, resurrection; 8th-mass cure critical wounds, moment of prescience, regenerate; 9th-foresight, mass heal, true resurrection

Ars Fae: Fae are notably unable to turn undead. The Faewyrd gains limited influence over nature instead of the ability to turn or rebuke undead. At first level, the faewyrd gains a fae companion selected from the following list: old souled item (small animated object), bat, cat, dog (regular or riding), grig (without fiddle), horse (light or heavy), hybsil(mof), jermlaine (mm2), monstrous centipede (medium), monstrous spider or scorpion (small), mule, nixie, owl, petal (mm3), pony, rat (regular or dire), raven, warhorse (light), or viper (small or medium). This companion receives the same benefits as a familiar. If it dies, however, it does not impose an xp penalty as a familiar would, and it may be replaced in the same manner as an animal companion, with a 24 hour ritual, though, instead of prayer, this ritual requires frenzied revelry in a suitably wild setting. The faewyrd also gains Wild Empathy, and may use it against fey and plants in addition to animals. This ability replaces Turn/Rebuke Undead.
edit- I would probably figure out the rough CR of each tier of Animal Companion and just say "animal, plant, vermin or fae of [X] CR" rather than make a special list, and just exercise restraint, like how I allow a grig, but not it's fiddle. And yes, that would allow a 13th+ level faewyrd to have nymph companion. I don't even care at that point, a druid cohort would be more powerful.
I went through and figured the CRs for the Animal Companion levels-
4th+ level: CR 2
7th+ level: CR 3-4
10th+ level: CR 5-6
13th+ level: CR 7-8
16th+ level: CR 8-9

So basically it's "CR roughly half your level, round up."
Bonus Languages: A faewyrd may learn sylvan as a bonus language, as well as Druidic, though because the latter is a highly guarded secret language, doing so puts them in potential danger if a druid circle learns of it.

Luckbringing: Fae magic is notoriously concerned with luck and fate. The Faewyrd gains a bonus feat at 1st level, and every three levels thereafter (4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th and 19th), which may be used to select any Luck feat.
At third level, the faewyrd may select one of the following abilities-- bardic music (as a bard 1/3 his class level), evasion, trapfinding, or uncanny dodge. If the faewyrd has any of these abilities from another class, they may select a different one, or may stack their levels of faewyrd with the other class (so a bard/faewyrd could use bardic music at his bard level+1/3 his faewyrd level, and a rogue/faewyrd could select improved evasion instead of normal evasion, and so on).
This replaces the ability to select one domain.

Faeskein: As a faewyrd increases in power, they find themselves more and more able to influence nature. At 2nd level, they gain Woodland Stride as the druid ability. At 3rd level, they gain Trackless Step as the druid ability. At 4th level, they gain Resist Nature's Lure as the druid ability. At 9th level, they gain Venom Immunity as the druid ability. At 13th level, they gain Thousand Faces as the druid ability. At 15th level, they gain Timeless Body as the druid ability.
This replaces the ability to select one domain.
Then you take a hatchet to the cleric spell list and graft in some spells from the druid list that you want, using the example Witch variant from the DMG as a guide. This class is primarily concerned with nature and luck, but lays down battlefield control instead of summoning or domination effects. That's enough to hang a limited list on.
Last edited by Prak on Thu Aug 27, 2015 12:08 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Bigode »

The problem with the archivist is: it might be "wizard-level" by Balance Points criteria, but it's by a substantial margin one the weakest there, and it's not slightly hard to end up with one that isn't meaningfully better than a decent rogue (it's not inconceivable to end up at monk-level, but takes a bit more "talent"). It's only "one of the strongest classes" according to JaronK because he's an idiot that assumes all the most stupid parts of D&D 3.5 will be in play (and level 20 "play" at that).

The Trollman-Suliin sorcerer was in a definitely unpolished but usable state; there's no "more complete" version save to the extent that you regard my thaumaturge as the "finished" version (and it's no great improvement, but there's something) - the "wizard/2" was really lazy shorthand for the fact that it has exactly the same spells/day progression as the T-S sorcerer (as given in a later post in that thread): "This class got half as many spells per day of each level as a Wizard, round day. And yes, a "1" goes to "0" not "-"."

You might find I have something else intelligent to say if you concede the following:

JaronK's tiers, being based on "the optimization community's" fappery, are stupid and useless, and this and this are better reference points for your intended power level.

(If you learn nothing else, at least learn that that is the correctly-working D&D Wiki, not any others.)
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Post by Sacrificial Lamb »

Red_Rob wrote:Well, some of us foolishly assumed that since you posted the class on a game design forum that you maybe wanted some actual feedback. If you were already happy with it and didn't care about anyone else's opinion why bother posting it in the first place?
It looked like I was just being told:

Don't make a Druid variant; create an entirely new class.

And the rants about the Tier system (which I barely mentioned in passing) were an unnecessary derailment of the thread, as far as I'm concerned.

But you're right. I temporarily forgot that this is a forum that strongly focuses upon game design, and so you guys will want to see game mechanics that are entirely new.

And I actually wasn't entirely happy with the class. I still have major issues with the luck feats, and want to replace them with a more robust luck power. But the class is highly playable in its current form. It works reasonably well.
Red_Rob wrote:When you post a class for public consumption people are going to look at three things. How cohesive is the theme, how well do the mechanics convey that theme, and how balanced is it with the rest of the game. Now, given that 3e came out 15 Goddamn years ago people have also come to expect a little mechanical flair at this point - people have been making "A Rogue but with some psi powers instead of Uncanny Dodge and slightly less sneak attack" type class variants for a literal decade and they don't get anyone excited any more. People want to see an innovative resource mechanic or a neat little tweak that reinforces your theme through the way the class plays.
Honestly, I think many of the members of this site take their obsession with "mechanical flair" a little too far, bringing it almost to the point of fetish. But what do I know?
Red_Rob wrote:The reason you didn't seem to understand the criticisms being levelled against this class was that people were assuming you had a theme you were trying to convey - a class based around luck and gambling, playing the odds and always coming out on top through lucky breaks, that sort of thing. Hence people were recommending you come up with a spell system that fits that feel, that you drop the elements that didn't fit that concept and all the other stuff people have been saying for the last two pages. Instead you just had some abilities you wanted to staple onto your Druid character and were willing to give up Wildshape to get them. That isn't really worth a whole variant class to be honest, and definitely not something that is going to get people talking.

So I'm gonna say that the class is fine, it will probably work great for what you want and have fun playing it. But it doesn't really warrant any serious discussion and will probably be of very limited interest to anyone else.
Well, you're kinda right....and I do need to fix up those luck mechanics. If I can replace the luck feats with something that has more "mechanical flair", I'll let you know. I'll just go back to the drawing board.

But I'm still not stoked with the idea of creating an entirely new class from scratch, since that was never my desire anyway.
Prak wrote:
Sacrificial Lamb wrote:
Eikre wrote:Lamb, you're pretty transparently asking people to entertain your Elothar: Warrior of Bladereach base class. You're writing bespoke homebrew to match whatever personal preferences you have for the particular character you're playing right now. What kind of analysis are you expecting? As aggravated as you are about Kaelik's rude aggression in slapping the dicks out of your mouth, he still called it in his first post: Your DM probably isn't going to veto you, because you're trading good features for less-good features and that's not going to break his game. Does anything else matter?
I don't know who Elothar: Warrior of Bladereac is, but....ok. As far as expectations, I actually had no expectations at all. Various members of this site seem to possess some knowledge of D&D 3.5, so I felt that it might be good for someone else to evaluate the class.....and point out any glaring flaws.
sigh.
Start using the site search for this stuff.
[url=http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=28550#28550 wrote:Dungeonomicon[/url]]Elothar Warrior of Bladereach
"My name is Elothar. Your name is unimportant, for you shall soon be dead."

The city of Bladereach sits at the mouth of the Typhon River that flows from the Bane Mires into Ferrin's Bay. The elves of Celentian's caravan come every year to trade with the largely human inhabitants of Bladereach and sometimes they leave more than the wares of the Black Orchard Hills when they leave. The results of these dalliances find that they never fit in amongst the people of Bladereach, and are taught the hard secrets of battle that the children of Bladereach have to offer. Often, these half-elven warriors turn to adventuring.
---
We all know that 90% of PrCs are "Steve's Ninja of the Cresent Moon" rather than "Ninja of the Cresent Moon", a PrC intended for mass play.

The Elothar Warrior is our way of pointing out this fact. Lets face it: people don't even consider playing most PrCs. Not only do they have a very specific flavor, but they are usually intended to shore up the weaknesses of specific players and not their characters.

Just look at the Daggerspell Jag-offs in Complete Adventurer. That's one dude's hard-on for double daggers and not anything the average gamer even wants in his game (did we ever need double dagger arcane/druid wildshapers? Ever?).
sacrificiallamb wrote:My goal was absolutely not to create an entirely new class, but to instead create a variant that fit the needs of my campaign.

But instead, I had people continually implying that I should create an entirely new class from scratch, when that isn't what I want at all.
Ok, there's what you want to do, and there's what you want to have. What you want to do is just write up a quick variant, the end product you want to have, however, is basically an entirely new class with nothing to do with druids.
There it is again.

I'm being told that I don't want what I want.

Why the fuck do you people do that?

I assure you that I am the best authority on myself, and am fully qualified to know what it is I actually want.
Prak wrote:
But no, I had absolutely no idea what type of response I would receive here, although I'll admit the hostility really surprised me. I know that there's some ball-busting on this site from time to time, but I didn't expect Kaelik's rabid foaming of the mouth, or Trollman's blatant attempt to derail and troll the thread with a pointless rant over his hatred of JangK's class Tier system, or any of the other bullshit in this thread.....that had little to do with an actual evaluation of the class.
Lurk moar.
:mad:
Prak wrote:
Eikre wrote:If this is meant to be a contribution for serious consideration and widespread applicability, be advised: Without the inclusion of any real mechanical novelty, and without speaking to a theme that resonates more, your work is only another entry to the tall pile of pulpy Pathfinder-brand filler content. And, while it's true that lots of people are very interested to read that stuff, they only do so when it's official, thus meeting the constraints on the material they use for CharOp solitaire.
Fair enough.
Prak wrote:
Sacrificial Lamb wrote:Why does a class variant require a large amount of "real mechanical novelty" when it fits the theme I'm looking for, provides the game mechanics I want, and handles smoothly in play?

Originality is nice, but it's largely overrated.
Because you're posting for a larger audience. If you just want to know if something is appropriate, then the post is really "Hey guys, what do you think of [removing the core thematic abilities of the druid] and replacing them with [a bunch of mechanically weaker things]?" Then we'll respond with variations of "Um. We don't know why you'd want to do that, but, sure, whatever. It's not like it makes you more powerful..." If you're posting for others' consumption, then the thing you post needs to have a theme that explains the existence of its abilities, and a reason to exist. Seriously, this variant has no reason to exist outside of the campaign you're playing in.
Ok.
Prak wrote:
Eikre wrote:... do me a personal favor and stop writing a long-form document with all the copy/paste'd SRD content. Haven't you noticed how almost every variant is formatted exclusively as a list of the modified features? When you transcribe all the unmodified shit, you demand that the reader play a game of Find the Difference before he can make an evaluation, and it's a goddamned waste of time for anybody not sitting in a pediatrician's waiting room.
I don't know what I did wrong here. I believe in being thorough, so that there's no confusion on how the class functions. But for the sake of sanity, I'll try it your way in the future.
Thoroughness doesn't necessitate copy/pasta from the SRD, all you need to do is say "this variant has all the abilities of [base class] except where noted below" and then when an ability is replacing something say "this ability replaces [thing]."
That's fine, but nobody initially informed me of this. Like I said, I was just trying to be thorough. But I'll keep that in mind in the future, if I ever decide to post any material here again.
Last edited by Sacrificial Lamb on Thu Aug 27, 2015 11:08 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Post by Sacrificial Lamb »

Eikre wrote:
Why does a class variant require a large amount of "real mechanical novelty" when it fits the theme I'm looking for, provides the game mechanics I want, and handles smoothly in play?
Because you posted it on a public board and expected people to be interested in it! Your class is fucking boring, dude. It has a target audience of exactly one person in the entire world, and that person is you, and we already know that it suits his needs. There is no design work to be done.

Are you baffled by the direction the conversation went in? You're trying to solve the riddle the wrong way: People didn't derail the conversation. Your work just didn't merit any conversation. Kaelik and Frank waded in and engaged you about JaronK horseshit because that's something they can have a discussion about. And other people came out to put up some ideas for building a class from scratch, because that's a project that actually sounds potentially worthwhile. Sorry if that wasn't amenable to the ego gratification you were looking for sike I'm not sorry at all
Grow the fuck up.

Treating me like an idiot for creating a Druid variant when it is explicitly what I want is a fucking thread derail.

Frothing at the mouth about JangK's Tier system is a fucking thread derail.

I don't mind if you people behave like emotional infants, but when you do that....can you at least stay on point?

Otherwise, you can fuck right off.
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Post by Sacrificial Lamb »

Bigode wrote:The problem with the archivist is: it might be "wizard-level" by Balance Points criteria, but it's by a substantial margin one the weakest there, and it's not slightly hard to end up with one that isn't meaningfully better than a decent rogue (it's not inconceivable to end up at monk-level, but takes a bit more "talent"). It's only "one of the strongest classes" according to JaronK because he's an idiot that assumes all the most stupid parts of D&D 3.5 will be in play (and level 20 "play" at that).

The Trollman-Suliin sorcerer was in a definitely unpolished but usable state; there's no "more complete" version save to the extent that you regard my thaumaturge as the "finished" version (and it's no great improvement, but there's something) - the "wizard/2" was really lazy shorthand for the fact that it has exactly the same spells/day progression as the T-S sorcerer (as given in a later post in that thread): "This class got half as many spells per day of each level as a Wizard, round day. And yes, a "1" goes to "0" not "-"."

You might find I have something else intelligent to say if you concede the following:

JaronK's tiers, being based on "the optimization community's" fappery, are stupid and useless, and this and this are better reference points for your intended power level.

(If you learn nothing else, at least learn that that is the correctly-working D&D Wiki, not any others.)
Was the Thaumathurge supposed to be the finished version of the Sulin Sorcerer? That wasn't fully clear to me. Ok, good to know, thanks.

Like I said, I really really really don't want to get into arguments about the utility of JaronK's class Tier system....so I will avoid discussing it on this site, because the arguments I've already had here are giving me an epic headache.
Prak wrote:Here's something closer to what you want, so far as I can tell-

Faewyrd
While many mortals gain access to the immense power of divine magic through supplication to higher powers, there are those who gain their power through becoming an agent of an unpersonified force. The most notable such mortals are druids, but there is no shortage of clerics who tap into their power through representing Valor or Disease, with no god between them and their power.

The Faewyrd taps into the primal abilities of fae kind, and bring forth the ability to bless their allies and curse their enemies through manipulation of luck. The Seelie and Unseelie regularly hunt these mortals, as they see this a sort of theft, and attempt to press them into one side or the other, but fae not aligned to one side of the war or the other don't much care for such hat-wearing.

[Cleric Variant]
The Faewyrd has all the abilities of a Cleric, except where noted below.

Spellcasting: The magics of fae aren't much concerned with wisdom or sagacity, and instead respond much more to how beautiful or fearsome one is. The Faewyrd's casting is based on Charisma instead of wisdom.

Spontaneous Casting: In addition to the ability to spontaneously heal, the faewyrd can channel the magic of fae to alter others' luck. The faewyrd may spontaneously cast any of the following spells:

0-cure minor wounds, guidance, resistance; 1st-bless, cure light wounds, feather fall; 2nd-aid, cure moderate wounds, lesser restoration; 3rd-cure serious wounds, prayer, remove curse; 4th-break enchantment, cure critical wounds, restoration; 5th-atonement, mass cure light wounds, raise dead; 6th-find the path, mass cure moderate wounds, heal; 7th-greater restoration, mass cure serious wounds, resurrection; 8th-mass cure critical wounds, moment of prescience, regenerate; 9th-foresight, mass heal, true resurrection

Ars Fae: Fae are notably unable to turn undead. The Faewyrd gains limited influence over nature instead of the ability to turn or rebuke undead. At first level, the faewyrd gains a fae companion selected from the following list: old souled item (small animated object), bat, cat, dog (regular or riding), grig (without fiddle), horse (light or heavy), hybsil(mof), jermlaine (mm2), monstrous centipede (medium), monstrous spider or scorpion (small), mule, nixie, owl, petal (mm3), pony, rat (regular or dire), raven, warhorse (light), or viper (small or medium). This companion receives the same benefits as a familiar. If it dies, however, it does not impose an xp penalty as a familiar would, and it may be replaced in the same manner as an animal companion, with a 24 hour ritual, though, instead of prayer, this ritual requires frenzied revelry in a suitably wild setting. The faewyrd also gains Wild Empathy, and may use it against fey and plants in addition to animals. This ability replaces Turn/Rebuke Undead.
edit- I would probably figure out the rough CR of each tier of Animal Companion and just say "animal, plant, vermin or fae of [X] CR" rather than make a special list, and just exercise restraint, like how I allow a grig, but not it's fiddle. And yes, that would allow a 13th+ level faewyrd to have nymph companion. I don't even care at that point, a druid cohort would be more powerful.
I went through and figured the CRs for the Animal Companion levels-
4th+ level: CR 2
7th+ level: CR 3-4
10th+ level: CR 5-6
13th+ level: CR 7-8
16th+ level: CR 8-9

So basically it's "CR roughly half your level, round up."
Bonus Languages: A faewyrd may learn sylvan as a bonus language, as well as Druidic, though because the latter is a highly guarded secret language, doing so puts them in potential danger if a druid circle learns of it.

Luckbringing: Fae magic is notoriously concerned with luck and fate. The Faewyrd gains a bonus feat at 1st level, and every three levels thereafter (4th, 7th, 10th, 13th, 16th and 19th), which may be used to select any Luck feat.
At third level, the faewyrd may select one of the following abilities-- bardic music (as a bard 1/3 his class level), evasion, trapfinding, or uncanny dodge. If the faewyrd has any of these abilities from another class, they may select a different one, or may stack their levels of faewyrd with the other class (so a bard/faewyrd could use bardic music at his bard level+1/3 his faewyrd level, and a rogue/faewyrd could select improved evasion instead of normal evasion, and so on).
This replaces the ability to select one domain.

Faeskein: As a faewyrd increases in power, they find themselves more and more able to influence nature. At 2nd level, they gain Woodland Stride as the druid ability. At 3rd level, they gain Trackless Step as the druid ability. At 4th level, they gain Resist Nature's Lure as the druid ability. At 9th level, they gain Venom Immunity as the druid ability. At 13th level, they gain Thousand Faces as the druid ability. At 15th level, they gain Timeless Body as the druid ability.
This replaces the ability to select one domain.
Then you take a hatchet to the cleric spell list and graft in some spells from the druid list that you want, using the example Witch variant from the DMG as a guide. This class is primarily concerned with nature and luck, but lays down battlefield control instead of summoning or domination effects. That's enough to hang a limited list on.
THANK YOU.

This is an actually useful post. This might not be exactly what I'm looking for, but it certainly gives me ideas.
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Sacrificial Lamb
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Post by Sacrificial Lamb »

Anyway, I'm gonna go back to the drawing board. If I have any other insights on the class to share, I'll let you guys know.

But I'm done posting on this thread now.

Thank you for your input.
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Bigode
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Post by Bigode »

If you don't want to use quality standards of any quality, enjoy the fruits of collaboration between you and Prak.
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Post by Wiseman »

I thought the quote tags glitch was fixed?
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TheFlatline wrote:Legolas/Robin Hood are myths that have completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a bow".
The D&D wizard is a work of fiction that has a completely unrealistic expectation of "uses a book".
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Post by erik »

This thread was surreal.

"Imma build a bear using a duck"
"Hey, a big dog would be a better model to start from for your bear. A duck makes no sense. You don't want to fly, swim or quack. Also JaronK is a mouthbreather whose garbage-in/garbage-out Tier system does nothing useful except expose fools"
"But I want a duck! FOR RAISINS! and stahp with the headaches"


Srsly tho, if someone hasn't actually read stickied threads and is shocked by frequent posters posting like they do in every other post, then why pretend to be a lurker? You're better off openly declaring newness so that you can avoid at least some inevitable flak from people making the reasonable assumption that you are familiar with core concepts and conceits. I suppose it should have been obvious that you haven't lurked when you had to ask if you could post a custom material... when you can plainly see that over a thousand custom material threads have already been posted here.

This thread won't be a total waste though, mostly because there is an argument that SL could have made if he hadn't hurt his brain trying to read those "boring" game design links. The Same Game Test is kind of shit at testing team-buffing classes. You'll get false negatives.

I propose a Team SGT. If you add your class to a party of 3 monks does your team become better or worse than 4 monks?
What about to a team of 3 fighters? A team of 3 rogues?
Don't bother with a team of 3 vs. 4 wizards... they already exceeded maximum win.
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Post by Bigode »

erik wrote:I propose a Team SGT. If you add your class to a party of 3 monks does your team become better or worse than 4 monks?
What about to a team of 3 fighters? A team of 3 rogues?
An interesting formulation, but might require some careful thought about which class(es) best represent(s) each level - not necessarily monks for Low, fighters for Medium, or rogues for High; with the bonus hilarity that, say, a High supporter would make themselves and 3 [rogues] no better than 4 [rogues].
Hans Freyer, s.b.u.h. wrote:A manly, a bold tone prevails in history. He who has the grip has the booty.
Huston Smith wrote:Life gives us no view of the whole. We see only snatches here and there, (...)
brotherfrancis75 wrote:Perhaps you imagine that Ayn Rand is our friend? And the Mont Pelerin Society? No, those are but the more subtle versions of the Bolshevik Communist Revolution you imagine you reject. (...) FOX NEWS IS ALSO COMMUNIST!
LDSChristian wrote:True. I do wonder which is worse: killing so many people like Hitler did or denying Christ 3 times like Peter did.
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Post by Prak »

Sacrificial Lamb wrote:
Prak wrote:
sacrificiallamb wrote:My goal was absolutely not to create an entirely new class, but to instead create a variant that fit the needs of my campaign.

But instead, I had people continually implying that I should create an entirely new class from scratch, when that isn't what I want at all.
Ok, there's what you want to do, and there's what you want to have. What you want to do is just write up a quick variant, the end product you want to have, however, is basically an entirely new class with nothing to do with druids.


There it is again.

I'm being told that I don't want what I want.

Why the fuck do you people do that?

I assure you that I am the best authority on myself, and am fully qualified to know what it is I actually want.
Dude, shut the fuck up. There's a difference between what you want, and what you want to do. What you want is a class with a few pissant druid abilities that real druids fucking forget about, a comedy relief animal companion, and the ability to cast bullshit bonus spells without having to prep them. I get that. I assure you I understand very well the end product you desire. But what you don't want is to do the work of making that class. You want to jury rig it from a chasis that doesn't fuck fit it, because you're being fucking lazy, and doing it right sounds too much like work. Like fucking JaronK and Pathfinder.

I get it. I want money. I'd very much like someone to just hand me money. I very much don't want to work. Unfortunately, I am not Donald Trump, so I have to work to have money.
Prak wrote:
But no, I had absolutely no idea what type of response I would receive here, although I'll admit the hostility really surprised me. I know that there's some ball-busting on this site from time to time, but I didn't expect Kaelik's rabid foaming of the mouth, or Trollman's blatant attempt to derail and troll the thread with a pointless rant over his hatred of JangK's class Tier system, or any of the other bullshit in this thread.....that had little to do with an actual evaluation of the class.
Lurk moar.
:mad:
No, seriously, if you couldn't predict that this is the response you'd get, you need to lurk more and learn this forum. We don't ball bust, we take a fucking hatchet to peoples' rules and their desires. Fuck, look at the threads where I've had to have it beat into me that what I'm willing to do will not produce the end result I want.
Prak wrote:

I don't know what I did wrong here. I believe in being thorough, so that there's no confusion on how the class functions. But for the sake of sanity, I'll try it your way in the future.
Thoroughness doesn't necessitate copy/pasta from the SRD, all you need to do is say "this variant has all the abilities of [base class] except where noted below" and then when an ability is replacing something say "this ability replaces [thing]."
That's fine, but nobody initially informed me of this. Like I said, I was just trying to be thorough. But I'll keep that in mind in the future, if I ever decide to post any material here again.
Dude. Look at the fucking books. That's what WotC did. Seriously, open Unearthed Arcana, or look at the class variants from it on d20srd.com. That's how they're written.

The Faewyrd that I wrote up is exactly what you fucking want. I don't know why you're so fucking hung up on writing "Druid" on your character sheet, but you can seriously just call your character a druid in game. No one cares past the slight confusion that it will cause when you intro your character. But as far as the game itself is concerned, your variant has nothing the fuck to do with druidry.


@Wiseman: it was "fixed" in that the forum now auto-closes hanging quote tags at the end of a post. It vastly ameliorates the clusterfuck that used to happen, but it can only do so much.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
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You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
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Post by Eikre »

Sacrificial Lamb wrote:I don't mind if you people behave like emotional infants, but when you do that....can you at least stay on point?
Conceivably, yes, but your topic would have 0 replies and just slide off the front page of the forum without comment. That's what I'm telling you. The conversation you're looking for didn't exist. If you encountered one of us in the line at the DMV and tried to strike up this discussion from scratch, the setting wouldn't encourage us to courteously offer the whiz-bang design evaluation that you you were hoping for; we would, in fact, just nod politely and try to just keep doing shit on our phones without getting distracted by your useless prattle, because it would be rude to tell your outright that we didn't fucking care. That's out in public, where some of us have manners. But you came into our house, motherfucker, and none of us have those reservations in here.

If you post a go-nowhere topic, somebody might feel gratified to rehabilitate it with discussion about an incidental tangent. Don't be under the mistaken impression that anybody sabotaged a promising dialogue, though; what you're looking for just didn't exist. That's why I'm saying it wasn't a derail. That word, you see, would imply that your train was knocked off its tracks while it was on its way to an important destination. I'm telling you, those tracks didn't exist, and your train wasn't on its way to anywhere, so nobody could have derailed it if that was the sole desire in their blackened little hearts; much to the contrary, they came in here and built their own tracks, put their own steam engines on the rails, and you ended up in one of the passenger cars, confused, because you're looking out the window and the landscape doesn't feature nearly as many towering, ejaculating cocks as you imagined it would.
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