The Cousin IT
First Post
Hey all, I have two things I need to talk about and would like your feedback on.
First of all is lack of classes that use mechanics instead of magic. The two "real" option are the Aritifacer from Eberron, but that class has the strange "infussions" which at least in my opinion aren't very well thoughout. They were trying to make a class that created objects instead of casting spells, but all that they ended up with was a watered down wizard that had a very limited amount of spells, just think about it. There really isn't any advantage in the Artifacer over a normal wizard. They are good at making items, but with a few feats any wizard can be just as good, and wizards can also cast actually useful spells, like um, FIREBALL. Being able to give armor a +3 enhancement bonus is nice at 3rd level, but in the long run the lack of offensive spellcasting just isn't balanced out.
The other more mechanical class is the Gnome Artifacer, and it is a joke, it really really sucks. IT GETS WANDS AS CLASS ABILITIES. No need to get in further about it.
So I have been working on my own mechanical class and I call it the "Engineer", it doesn't cast spells per say, but does create widgets that function almost identically to them. I've tried to keep the systems as close as possible, I've added the necessity of a "spark" to start the devices. This spark is a small amount of magical electricity, therefore making these devices subject to antimagic zone, and dispelling. In the end there isn't really much difference except from style between a wizard with the appropriate feats and my engineer, but I think that style is what counts most in an RPG. Its pretty long, around 5 or 6 pages, so i'm going to post it on my website, I don't know what the url is going to be exactly so go to www.geocities.com/vincentbauer3 and I'll add a clear link to this .word document. Please tell me what you think of it and how I could improve it, and I know that there's lots to improve.
Seconldy is character sheets. I've spent some time making a character sheet in excel. I know that you can already download one from planetadnd, but mine is much better. It automatically fills in lots of information for you, all that you have to do it tell it how many levels of what base class, your race, and your ability score rolls, (sorry i'm not crazy enough to program it for every nonPHB class) and it calculates your number of skills, BAB, class abilities, racial languages, size, speed, encumburence, what ever you could need it automatically calculates it. Only thing is that it isn't completely ready yet. I have yet to add much of the spell casting because it takes a lot of time to put in all the values for spell per day and such, its a 9 by 20 table that I have to program into the excel, so i'm just being lazy about that, and I'm going to program it with some house rules, sorry to all you traditionalist but why don't you go program your own sheets, so it will end up having the recharging spells for cleric and druids, and the spell points and such for wizards. It has a rudamentary bit for wizard spell points at the bottom so you can see how I work it in, but its not done yet. For this also look for links at www.geocities.com/vincentbauer3
First of all is lack of classes that use mechanics instead of magic. The two "real" option are the Aritifacer from Eberron, but that class has the strange "infussions" which at least in my opinion aren't very well thoughout. They were trying to make a class that created objects instead of casting spells, but all that they ended up with was a watered down wizard that had a very limited amount of spells, just think about it. There really isn't any advantage in the Artifacer over a normal wizard. They are good at making items, but with a few feats any wizard can be just as good, and wizards can also cast actually useful spells, like um, FIREBALL. Being able to give armor a +3 enhancement bonus is nice at 3rd level, but in the long run the lack of offensive spellcasting just isn't balanced out.
The other more mechanical class is the Gnome Artifacer, and it is a joke, it really really sucks. IT GETS WANDS AS CLASS ABILITIES. No need to get in further about it.
So I have been working on my own mechanical class and I call it the "Engineer", it doesn't cast spells per say, but does create widgets that function almost identically to them. I've tried to keep the systems as close as possible, I've added the necessity of a "spark" to start the devices. This spark is a small amount of magical electricity, therefore making these devices subject to antimagic zone, and dispelling. In the end there isn't really much difference except from style between a wizard with the appropriate feats and my engineer, but I think that style is what counts most in an RPG. Its pretty long, around 5 or 6 pages, so i'm going to post it on my website, I don't know what the url is going to be exactly so go to www.geocities.com/vincentbauer3 and I'll add a clear link to this .word document. Please tell me what you think of it and how I could improve it, and I know that there's lots to improve.
Seconldy is character sheets. I've spent some time making a character sheet in excel. I know that you can already download one from planetadnd, but mine is much better. It automatically fills in lots of information for you, all that you have to do it tell it how many levels of what base class, your race, and your ability score rolls, (sorry i'm not crazy enough to program it for every nonPHB class) and it calculates your number of skills, BAB, class abilities, racial languages, size, speed, encumburence, what ever you could need it automatically calculates it. Only thing is that it isn't completely ready yet. I have yet to add much of the spell casting because it takes a lot of time to put in all the values for spell per day and such, its a 9 by 20 table that I have to program into the excel, so i'm just being lazy about that, and I'm going to program it with some house rules, sorry to all you traditionalist but why don't you go program your own sheets, so it will end up having the recharging spells for cleric and druids, and the spell points and such for wizards. It has a rudamentary bit for wizard spell points at the bottom so you can see how I work it in, but its not done yet. For this also look for links at www.geocities.com/vincentbauer3
I'll check them out as soon as they're up. Especially the character sheet. If it's the same one you showed me, it'll be pretty sweet. 
