Puppet Master

[GamerRay]

Note: This class is currently undergoing a major revision. To see its progress, refer to the conversation between Kisanji and me, starting at post 11. And don't hesitate to give your input and ideas!

I've been mulling over the idea of a puppeteer class for awhile now. I've never designed a class before, but I've always liked the idea of controlling a minion that was more of an extension of yourself than a creature.

As I imagine the class, it'd be a "melee" controller/striker, with the puppet being up in the melee range while the puppeteer stood in the back, controlling it with strings (or psychically).

The 2 would share damage or have separate pools, and the puppeteer would have abilities outside of its puppet, while the latter would perhaps be built like a swiss army knife, basically ending in a powerful mixture of arcane magic and "modern" technology.

This class is loosely based off of Kankuro from Naruto, with influences from Ogre Battle 64 and Puppet Master movies. However, note that I'm in no way bound to following these. Naruto is just a rough idea of how I'd like the puppet to act (as far as the body being packed with weaponry is concerned). No chakra strings, useless master (only there to control), or even puppet abilities need to strictly follow it. It is inspiration, and nothing more.

To-Do List (updated 11/5/08):
[sblock]
-Finalize features (nearly there)
-At-Wills
-Figure out how dolls will be used
-Encounters
-Dailies
-Utilities
-add more to the to-do list
[/sblock]

Class info and stats:
[sblock]
Role: Controller/Striker. While the puppeteer’s own abilities make him a dangerous controller, the puppets he uses are strikers.
Power Source: Arcane. [flavor text]
Key Abilities: Intelligence, Dexterity, Charisma.
Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, Leather
Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, Simple Ranged, Military Ranged [should weapons be usable? since his fingers need to stay free and nimble]
Implements: Gloves

Hit Points at 1st level: 12 + Constitution score.
Hit Points gained/level: 5.
Healing Surges: 7 + Con modifier

Trained Skills: stealth, acrobatics, arcana...

Build Options: Doll Builder, String Weaver[/sblock]

Features:
[sblock] [FONT=&quot]♦[/FONT] Doll Powers: A puppeteer may only use powers with the doll keyword through any eligible, actively controlled puppet.

[FONT=&quot]♦[/FONT] Doll User: A puppeteer uses arcane strings to control summoned puppets. There is no limit to the amount of summoned dolls.
All dolls are considered unconscious when they are summoned. A puppeteer can control a doll for as long as he wishes, and can dismiss control as a free action. Dolls are subject to the maximum total range of your Ephemeral Strings (see below). However, any doll that is not actively controlled (see below) is considered unconscious.
You can only actively control one doll for every weapon slot you possess; every doll you control reduces the number of string powers you can activate at one time by one. A doll which is reduced to 0 HP is removed from play.

[FONT=&quot]♦[/FONT] Ephemeral Strings: Your powers operate based on arcane strings formed from your own energy. Although they form a visible line between you and any of your effects, they are entirely illusory; they have no effect on their own, and they cannot be used, moved, damaged or affected in any way by anyone other than you. The DC to spot your strings is (15 + 1/2 class level + Dex modifier). Your strings are considered a conjuration for any effects, such as dispel magic, that intentionally try to affect them, but can be summoned again at will as a minor action (see powers: Class features, below).
Your arcane strings have a maximum range.
When you first create your Puppeteer, choose either Dexterity or Intelligence: the distance your strings can extend is equal to this score + one half your class level. You may add the bonus of any implement used to this range. When controlling multiple string effects or dolls, your total combined length may not exceed your maximum range. Unless stated otherwise, you can have one active string power for every weapon slot you possess; every active string power reduces the number of dolls you can actively control at one time.

[FONT=&quot]♦[/FONT] School of Puppetry: Choose one of the following schools and add its bonus to your own.

Augmentation Specialist: You have chosen to focus on the composition of your puppets, honing each into a graceful and well-tuned machine of death. Between turns, you may choose to make opportunity attacks with your doll (centered on its square) instead of yourself.

[This school would emphasize the puppets’ use as giant flying pointy things; it would be more suitable for a striker. This school would provide enhancements to encounter/utility powers that beefed up damage or put harmful effects on opponents, using the doll keyword. ]

String Theorist: You have chosen to focus on the magical composition of your arcane strings, allowing your control over the battlefield and your dolls to increase. Whenever you use a move action, your doll can move two squares or stand up.

[This school would emphasize puppets’ potential use in battlefield control and distraction. As such, it would be more suitable for controllers. Dolls would receive benefits that focused on these aspects of their design. Encounter/utility powers juiced up would be string-based abilities, such as those that controlled allies, corpses or enemies]
[/sblock]

Class Abilities:
[sblock]Ephemeral Strings: Attach Strings Puppeteer feature
Glowing, ghostly strings stretch out from your hands and attach to your puppet.
At will ♦ Arcane, Implement
Minor Action
Target: One doll that is not being actively controlled.
Effect: The target is no longer considered unconscious, and you actively control the doll. The doll gains a bonus to all attacks and defenses equal to your implement bonus. This power ends at the end of your next turn.
Sustain Minor: A puppeteer can sustain all uses of this power as a minor action.
Special: If you have just used another action to summon the intended target, you may activate this power as a free action.

Ephemeral Strings: As Real As They Need To Be Puppeteer feature
On their way to the caves, the puppeteer assured his companions his strings wouldn’t get in their way.
At Will ♦ Arcane, Implement
Free Action
Target: Personal
Your strings turn from illusory to substantial, allowing you to use "String" abilities. You may revert your strings to being illusory as a free action. At the end of the String ability's effect, the string return to being illusory automatically.[/sblock]

Concept Art
My brother-in-law has been working on a few drawings to accompany the class when it's finished. While this one isn't quite what I had in mind in terms of size and function, it does give a rough idea of what I'm seeing this class as.

[sblock]Ignore the blind thing, puppet size, the puppet's left leg, and the buzz-saw. The beauty is that it's a crude creation, but still sinister and deadly. And you have the master behind it doing all the controlling.[/sblock]

Everything below this line is part of the original build. Many things will be implemented from this list, but likely with some differences.
========================================================
Abilities so far

[sblock]Puppet Master

At Will:

Class At-Will: [unnamed]
With a quick wiggle of the fingers, the link between master and puppet can be seen.
Your strings turn from insubstantial to substantial, allowing you to use "String" abilities. At the end of the String ability's effect, the string return to insubstantial as a free action.

Big thanks to Kisanji Arael for this idea.

Power Infused Blade
The puppet thrusts its open hand forward as a blade, coated in a bit of your own magic, emerges from its palm.
Mod1 vs AC
1d10 + Mod1 necrotic damage. This counts as a basic attack.

I looked at the generic warlock and wizard attacks, and they are 1d10 and 2d4 + mod, so I think this is fairly balanced. I didn't want to add an effect because I want it to be a basic stab, but it can be used as an OA.

Point Blank Shot
The fingertips on its right hand bend backwards, revealing several tiny cannons.
Ranged 2
Mod1 vs AC
2d8+ Mod1 damage if enemy is adjacent, 1d6 + Mod2 damage otherwise.

This seems odd at first (especially the range), but what I'm trying to do with this class is to make the user think. I'm hoping to make this ability a bit overpowered, but with the drawback of provoking an opportunity attack from all adjacent enemies. Thus this can be fired from the safety of distance, but with reduced damage, or you can get in their face and fire, but risk damage in return.

Icy Fist
As its fist clenches, small tubes spraying freezing air emerge from its knuckles.
Mod1 vs Ref
1d6+Mod1 cold damage, and the target is slowed (save ends).

Clipping
The puppet hurls itself at the legs of the enemy, knocking them to the ground.
Mod2 vs Ref
1d6+Mod1(or Mod2?) damage, the target is knocked prone, and the puppet moves to one of the three squares on the opposite side of the enemy (this does not provoke and opportunity attack).

Obviously this is part 2 of the control ability, and it mostly exists to grant combat advantage, and will be especially useful with a rogue in the group.

Utility:
Return
With a yank of the strings, the puppet returns to its master, using its momentum to make some room.
The puppet is quickly pulled back to an unoccupied square next to its master. This does not provoke an opportunity attack. You may then slide an adjacent enemy 1 square.
I'm unsure about the puppet provoking an OA. On one hand there will probably have been damage dealt to the master, but perhaps this should be a last resort, making you debate on whether to gamble damage or shift away and hope the party helps you.[/sblock]

I've also brainstormed a few encounter powers and dailies. I fear that my grenade concept may either be a great idea or easily breakable. If it's a bad idea, grenades can just fail to detonate if they don't hit their intended target. Keep in mind these aren't assigned a proper level, modifier, or damage yet.

[sblock] ENCOUNTER:
Still not sure how these should work...

Note: If a grenade fails to hit its target, you may
-Retrieve it at the end of combat (is there a point?)
-Stand in the square and spend a standard action to retrieve it, replenishing the power.
-Spend a standard action to detonate it? Only available to Controller path? Perhaps have a few controller grenades have a special "retrieval" option for controllers?


Freezing Grenade
A section of its forearm opens up, revealing a tube with some sort of stone wedged in it. There’s a rush of air, and the stone is hurled through the air, exploding on impact and covering the area with water that quickly freezes the feet of all those caught in its blast.
Standard – Ranged Burst 3 within 5 squares
Mod2 vs Reflex
Creatures struck by the grenade become immobilized (save ends). The affected area becomes difficult terrain until the end of your next turn.

Sticky Grenade
An arm cannon opens and fires a black, sticky substance at the target. A quiet, unsettling ticking can be heard when it lands…
Mod2 vs Reflex
Hit: If a creature is hit by the grenade may make a saving throw at the end of its turn to remove it and throw it up to 2 squares away. When it fails its first saving throw, or any creature in the space the grenade is thrown in, takes 2d10 + Mod2 fire damage.
Miss: The grenade lands 2 squares behind the target, or on a creature directly behind them. The same rule applies.
Caltrops
The puppet’s mouth opens and several tiny spikes litter the ground in front of it.
Target: One square in front of puppet.
Any enemy moving through that square takes 1d10 + Mod2 damage, is slowed (save ends) and takes 5 ongoing damage (save ends).

Smoke Grenade
The area fills with smoke, obscuring all vision.
Ranged burst 1
Creatures in the zone have total concealment, but are blind. This zone blocks line of site.
Sustain Minor

Icy Blast
Small tubes emerge from the puppet’s torso, spraying the area with a freezing gas.
Mod 1 vs Reflex Burst 1
Hit: 1d8 + mod cold damage and target is slowed.

Hypnotic Gaze
The puppet’s eyes begin to swirl and the enemy gets sleepy. Very sleepy.
Mod vs Will
Target is asleep (save ends).

DAILY:

Poison Doll
You pull a small, wilting doll from your belt and send it after an enemy.
Mod2 vs Ref
Hit: Enemy takes 2d8 + Mod 2 ongoing poison damage (save ends)

Horrific Illusion
The enemy runs in terror as if it’d just seen a ghost… or a dragon.
Target: One creature adjacent to you or your puppet.
Mod vs Will
Hit: 2d6 + Mod psychic damage, and target runs in fear, moving its speed + your Mod away from you. This provokes opportunity attacks.

Friend or Foe?
It’s amazing what one can accomplish with some mirrors and a clever spell.
Target: One enemy within 5 squares of you.
Until the end of its next turn, target enemy acts as though you are its ally.

UTILITY:
Return
With a yank of the strings, the puppet returns to its master, using its momentum to make some room. The puppet provokes an opportunity attack from any enemies adjacent to its original square, and is quickly pulled back to an unoccupied square next to its master. You may slide an adjacent enemy 1 square.

Two Heads Are Better Than One
You watch where you’re going while your puppet watches where you’ve been.
At the beginning of a surprise round, roll 1d20. If it’s 10 or above, you aren’t surprised.

[/sblock]

(For the most part, you can probably ignore the mods. They are just placeholders right now until I can figure out what stat should be used)
Thanks in advance for any input.


What has been suggested so far:
[sblock]-When building the puppet, you begin by choosing 1 of several puppet "kits" (still a rough idea, but very unique and could be fun).
-Range will either be a static number between 5 and 15 + both main modifiers (probably int+dex)
-Line of Sight is required.
-Having a shared HP pool, with the master taking increased damage.
-Having separate HP pools.
-The puppet master is very skilled at hiding and controlling from the shadows.
-Using gloves as his implement (still unsure, as this closes off glove and weapon options)
-Puppet abilities based around his parts (knives, bombs, alchemical items...)
-Paragon and Epic paths that allow the puppet master to be more joined with his puppet, either by having mechanical parts, or becoming one with his puppet (still very open to ideas). Could also gain more control skills, damage abilities...
-Having the master/puppet follow the outline of the beast master, or base puppet attacks off of master's 2 main attributes.
-The master has a set of abilities as well, mostly for when the action gets too close to him (such as severing the link to the puppet and using the strings on an enemy).
-The strings can be used for tripping, grabbing, and being used to damage enemies.
-Stats: Int for controller, Dex for striker, Wis as a secondary for both.
-The master can aid allies by "controlling" them as well. Boosting attacks or defenses, or anything else you all can think of[/sblock]

 

[chronoplasm]

Sounds more psionic to me, with strings being 'brain waves' but able to manifest themselves physically for some attacks.

Attack Command Puppeteer Attack 1
At-Will. Psionic
Standard Action
Ranged 10
Target: One creature.
Attack: Charisma vs. Will
Hit: Slide the creature a number of squares equal to 1 plus your charisma modifier. That creature either makes a basic attack against one of its allies or it makes a basic attack against itself.

Also, this guy should be able to use corpses as puppets. They are easier to use because they don't resist.
Maybe those can be two different builds? One type of puppeteer uses living puppets, the other uses dead ones.


However you do it though, you have a cool basic premise for a class. Run with the idea in any way you see fit.

 

[GamerRay]

While sitting in a waiting room today, I came up with a few rough ideas for abilities. One of which was likes yours.

Corpse Puppet
The strings on one of your hands detaches from your puppet and work their way to a fallen enemy.
You control target enemy (still unsure on how health and defenses should work). So long as you control the enemy, you may only use your at wills and the enemy's at wills. You may use your Standard, Move, and Minor actions using either your puppet, the enemy, or both (only 1 standard action, but either puppet can use it). You may re-establish full control of your puppet as a minor action.

I haven't posted this yet because it's still rough, and I'd like my abilities to have a smidge more finality to them.

And although I've only played 4th edition, from what I read of psionics they do seem pretty similar. I thought about just having the master be a psychic, but I've come up with a few abilities so far that rely on being able to make the strings turn tangible (one of which I've named Birds on a Wire... it's still in the works, however).

And I really appreciate your power suggestion. I've given some brief thought to paragon abilities, and I've considered making him able to exercise more control over enemies. So I'm definitely storing yours in my potential powers section!

 

[Kreaf]

Hmm from the powers you have writen, it reads more like a "robot" or "construct" in D&D terms than a real puppet or living being.
As I read the first few sentence I thought of a kind of mind controller. But it doesn't sound bad.

Also the string thing can be a problem. Does he have to have a line of effect to his puppet?

Maybe you could ad a construction kit as "build options" at character creation. Like with the Warforged.
Have 4 or 5 options the player has to chose from (build his puppet) should the puppet have a Armor/Canon/Granates etc. Would make it a bit of complex to balance in the first place, but would make for great custimation.

For the puppeteer, make the strings really a kind of "power chain" in the first few levels he can use them to controle the puppet and deliver like lightning damage. Later on he could use them to enhance his own life from the life of his foes. Transfer energy (temp HP, AC etc) from enemies to his puppet stuff like that.
Give the puppet a own HP pool which can be fuild from the pupeteer (like the powers presented for the beastmaster) and a Ritual that lets rebuild, reconstruct etc the puppet.

Just throwing in random thoughts so...

Edit: post was targeted on the first post... you both answered while I was typing ^^

 

[GamerRay]

I guess essentially, it is more of a construct than a traditional puppet.

As for having line of sight, I'm still debating. If I had my way, I would say that it would require sight to at least 1 corner of the puppet's square, and each could share a movement (master moves 2, puppet moves 3). However, that is probably something I wont be able to officially iron out until a playtest. As I said, I want this class to make people think, and reward skilled combat (since if this were possible, a smart puppeteer could be devastating).

And I like your "kit" idea. I'm still not quite sure how to open up build options, since the closest class I can mimic right now is the Wizard with a mix of Beastmaster. However, perhaps giving a number of options would help cater to various playstyles. As of now I'm not sure if I want to give up the puppet's "doll of doom" feel (where his entire body is just a house for weaponry), but I think I may try to integrate a build style when I get this thing past the rough stage.

Thanks for your helpful comments, Kreaf!

 

[Kreaf]

Your welcome.

I think the "Doll of Doom" would fit perfectly to a gnome engeneer. But again at the moment it is kind of mixed up between a "Psychic" who controls the otherwise lifeless puppet, a "Engeneer" who controls like via remote a construct and a "Necromancer" who takes control over the bodys of dead foes...

I could see a combination of "psychic" and "necromancer" but can't see a combination with the engeneer thing...

Also you could carry over the lack of a "swiss army knive" type of construct to a doll equipped with the magic of his master. (Just refluff it. Instead of a mechanical knife use a kind of mind blade...)

 

[GamerRay]

Well, the balance I was going for was a psychic who controls a mechanized puppet. The puppet cannot act on its own, and there is more to the link between the puppet and its master than just strings (a sort of psychic connection).

The idea for controlling the dead or other characters will probably come later, possibly as a paragon path (as your strength grows, you learn to control more than your own puppet).

I'm also thinking of having the puppeteer infuse a part of himself in the puppet through a creation ritual, so that the puppeteer can't just control things willy-nilly.

I'd really like to try sticking to the idea of the puppet being one mess of weapons, but it depends on the controllers skills (control or damage) as to what he crafts for the puppet.

And I don't think I mentioned it, but the puppet will be roughly the size of an 8-13 year old child. So it's not a little marionette, but something with a size capable of storing weaponry and being believable that it could do damage to a dragon (as opposed to a 1ft tall thing with a 2 inch blade...).

edit: for a basic idea of how I see the class working, watch this video:[sblock] [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rXtOmqcRY4[/ame] [/sblock]

I got my inspiration for the class from Ogre Battle 64, the Puppet Master movie series, and this fight scene in Naruto. My brother-in-law is currently working on some art for it that will better capture what I envision the class to look like; a mixture of arcane art and "modern" technology.

 

[GamerRay]

I added some more encounters/dailies to the second spoiler (now becoming my "work in progress" section for the time being). Please especially give input on the grenades... I like the direction they're going but I feel like I'm treading a line with them.

Also changed the at-will Small Blade to Power Infused Blade, since it was a stretch to believe a magical machination could do broadsword damage with a light blade. Now its infused with the master's own magical energy, allowing for a 1d10 damage roll.

 

[Kisanji Arael]

You know, the scariest concept of puppet-master to me is one that controls his enemies, not a doll. May not be what you're going for, but I thought I'd bring it up.

I've actually thought an inordinate amount about these concepts (I'm kind of writing a book) - strings and manipulation are something you have to be very careful with, because if you open up too many possibilities, then the imagination knows that too much has been left unsaid, but if you limit yourself too heavily, it seems purposefully confined. A lot of my ideas probably won't be where you're headed, but if you're interested, just say so. I'll try to check back in a few hours.

 

[GamerRay]

I'd love to hear your ideas. Granted if it's not the direction I'm going I may not make room for them all, but they will definitely be considered.