Incarnist: "I'll take what that plane is having."

[SweetRein]

First, the class:
http://pifro.com/tempmove/IncarnistPREVIEW4.pdf

The concept, flavor:
A character who seeks stronger possibilities than the standard mortal realm, or just more, and sees the escapades from the outer planes as the next grasping point. Or perhaps the point to return to.
And with their insight, their research, their will, they grasp out for that power... and take it. Pulling it upon themselves and onto anything around them.
The characters are focused in wrapping themselves in the existence of others. The creatures, the ideas, the physical traits of their selected origin planes.

Mechanically:
The character is designed to conceptually wrap two roles together more selectively (Controller, Leader) without really emphasizing one or the other too much unless they completely focus on such. Further, a significant portion of the idea was to "honor" what Wizard's has done... and then see how the system works if that was done differently. In this case, focusing initially on characters who didn't need to roll to attack - and trying to balance the class to the other PHB classes around that.
There has been a lot of work put in to try to accomplish that, while still providing more to allow other play ideas come up out of the class.

This is my first break in to trying to get a grasp of 4E mechanics on the design side of things.
I have been playing it in a campaign for awhile now, using the response of the GM and my fellow party members in order to try to adjust it and balance it, with as much input as I can find. A significant bit of help came from the posts at the first forum I posted this on (GiantITP), however, I would like to move this over to a forum that actually might be interested.

Aside from that:
PEACH and thank you.

 

[Soel]

I love the themes here. You're really branching out into new design territory here, as well, which is also cool.

No specific comments on the mechanics, as I haven't had the time to look over all the powers and whatnot, but I would like to see this idea fully developed into a 30 level class with paragon paths, etc.

 

[Paultimatum]

Very nice. I like the flavor, and all of the cool mechanics. I had been meaning to make a homebrew elementalist class quite like this (with interesting combinations of effects) only with an aura/cool down class feature that i saw the idea for earlier on this forum. It's also surprisingly balanced for a homebrew class . I had a few comments about powers:

Revel the Cadaver
Am I missing something, or is this underpowered? Dazed save ends, but with a increasing bonus to the save, and even without that the average time they'll be dazed is about one and a half turns. I'd add something else, like a bonus to attack or damage agaist the target (maybe low vulnerable radiant?) or a penalty to attack. I could be wrong about the value of the save ends, with penalties to saves and whatnot, but at level one there arent too many of those. Also, the shadowfell bonus gives combat advantage, which dazed already provides (i guess it could come into effect if the target saves the first time and an ally goes between you and the target, but still).

Grace of the Choir
Again, strikes me as a bit underpowered. Maybe if the enemy took damage for all attacks, or all enemies took damage for attacking the ally. Could be wrong, but it is a daily.

Contract in Blood
I would add an effect that is usefull outside of skill challenges. Maybe you automatically know if they broke the contract? But that seems kind of like a ritual.

Order of the Styx
Since it's a daily, I'd make the duration save ends probably. Nice name though .

Bearded Tendrils
For a ninth level daily, I'd add a bit more. Maybe they gain temporary hitpoints when they do the damage?


Anyway, I really like the class, especially the mechanics. I also would like to see this to level 30, and paragon paths and feats and stuff. It's better to have some slightly underpowered things at first and add things anyway. Great job.

 

[SweetRein]

I actually have 1 paragon class semi finished, and a few things beyond level 10 (including the basis of the level 30 Celestia power). However, I simply do not have enough Paragon and Epic game experience, so, I'm a bit afraid of throwing a curve ball until I feel secure with the heroic part. That... and I need to figure out class feats. Any suggestions whatsoever on those would be an AOsend.

Paultimatum:
On Revel: So far, much of the response has been the exact opposite.
The Combat Advantage is supposed to be that 'bonus to attack', and balances it towards a Warlord encounter power.
Of course, I guess that is overlooking the daze part. Oops.
How's this:
[FONT=Trebuchet MS, sans-serif]Shadowfell: Each time the target fails its saving throw against this power, they are dealt aspect modifier radiant damage.

Grace: Oh, oops. That is actually an accident between the updates and simplifying from my last revision. [/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, sans-serif]Thanks for pointing that out.[/FONT][FONT=Trebuchet MS, sans-serif] It originally let the target declare vengeance every round, and keep the previous declarations. I just changed the "an enemy" to "each enemy".

Contract: Hmm, perhaps something along the lines of what one of the thrones in Adventurer's Vault 2 gives? That is, you automatically know when someone betrays you, deceives, or similar in your presence with the contract?

Order of the Styx: Save ends actually proved too powerful.
Perhaps "Whenever the target attempts to recharge a power this encounter, they roll two d6 and use the lowest."

Bearded: Temp HP wasn't in my idea for hell. The idea was to be more 'aggressive buffs'. Perhaps, enemies that get hit, can't shift on the next turn? I'm unsure if that'd be too powerful at that level or not (once again, my ability to balance nearing paragon starts to diminish).

Thank you for the input again.

[/FONT]

 

[Traverse]

The best homebrew class I've seen, even only up to paragon. (Well, tied with mine, of course. )

I like the idea of being able to sustain multiple effects, I know I've said that before. But I think it's unique enough to just be a class feature. It's listed under every current sustainable power in the build, so it's currently pointless as a keyword mechanic. Instead, just allow for two minor sustains every turn as a single minor action. Feel free to disregard this if you think that including sustained powers accessed via multiclass for the feature would be too powerful, or if you are planning to include certain minor sustains that are purposefully as powerful as two dual sustains.

You could think about allowing chainmail for the class. Unless you're going to add an origin for the Reflex scores, AC really suffers by end game for the class unless they want to sink a couple of feats for armor proficiencies. (Not every Incarnist will be able to fly away like Nu. )

Feel free to get Power Bonded up to +9. Unless you want to be behind everybody in the party by one at level 30. Or, you can drop it back down to +6, and make a Planar Expertise heroic feat. Though that feels kind of silly. I have the same problem on my class, but at least I still have an out with Implement Expertise.

That's all for now. I won't even go near your powers, as I already like them so much. Also, it's simply hard to compare with anything pre-existing.

 

[Paultimatum]

Yeah, the more I look at the powers the more I like them, as with the rest of the class, so I'm going to try to be helpful, if possible . I like those fixes for the ones i mentioned too. One possibility for bearded is they take a -5 penalty to damage until the end of your next turn. I'm not all that experienced with that area either, but there's no harm in trying. Another thing I noticed, Infernal Debt is vs. AC, but the class doesn't use weapons, so the power could probably use a +2 bonus to attack. As for feats, there's always racial ones tied into the planes, such as a celestial one for devas, a hell one for tieflings, an elemental one for genasis, and a shadowfell one for shadarkai. Possibly:

Astral Bond: Whenever you use a power that gives you a bonus for having the celestia planar origin, you gain a +1 bonus to your next saving throw.

Cursed Affinity: Whenever you use a power that gives you a bonus for having the hell planar origin, you do additional fire damage equal to your intelligence modifier.

Elemental Channeller: Whenever you use a power that gives you a bonus for having the elemental planar origin, you can push a creature adjacent to you one square.

Shadow's Chill: Whenever you would deal necrotic damage with a planar power, you can deal cold and necrotic damage instead.


For paragon paths, there could be one per origin, and/or a Master of All Planes kind of thing that allows you to pick another origin (if you weren't already going to give another with each tier, the flavor text at the beginning made this seem possible).

 

[SweetRein]

A decent sized update to this class, then:
http://pifro.com/tempmove/IncarnistPREVIEW4.pdf

This includes a sizeable number of feats, though most race related, two paragon paths, and normal powers up to level 15.
I haven't spent as much time balancing this section as much as the heroic tier, though work was spent in trying to find balancing points. There are a couple of powers I would like to get a more specific reply on, notably the Vivify from the Divine Vanguard.

Also, the description text for the Divine Vanguard is a temporary hold.

Traverse:
Dual Sustain as a class feature allows weird combos... which... I encourage despite the balancing issues. Note taken and applied. And with everything else, also, thank you.

Paultimatum:
I like many of those suggestions, and have borrowed and transformed a couple.
With Paragons: I was already planning and doing such.

Edit: Ak! Blind Justice's area is supposed to be: Close burst 5 including you. I forgot to include the including you portion of it. Will include with next update.

 

[Paultimatum]

Nice. All the feats look good to me, and Vivify seems about right, cool idea too. I think the celestial aura might be a bit powerful, as well as providing quite a bit of health in combat, it means no one would ever have to spend a healing surge from under bloodied. I'm not sure about this still, but maybe at least swap it and the level 16 feature, or add another condition that has to be met, like if they were attacked since the end of their last turn.

The only other thing I noticed was indebted surge, from the hell path. I like the flavor, but since your giving up 2d6 hp and its a daily, I might add a +2 attack when you use the power, before the end of your next turn.

Great job, and thanks for the updates.

 

[Shadow_walker]

I've just started reading this and may I say, WOW! This is unlike any homebrew class I have ever seen. Although in my opinion Shadow Convulsion is a little weak... I would make it teleport the target aspect modifier squares and keep the melee basic attack. This is just one suggestion I thought of while quickly reading it over though, I'll do some more reading and hopefully come up with some other ideas, I notices your saying you don't have much experience with paragon tier, I think I can help you there, I'll add more comments when I'm done reading the class. And this class is the best thing since the Psion! (yes i do like Psions a lot )