Class Construction Guide requesting feedback

[CRGreathouse]

At 7 dice is pretty much breaks even. You are right that the ability to roll a second one does reduce it slightly, but it doesnt reduce it by all that much overall

While the math is slightly off it still pretty much equals an extra die at +7d6, or at least 'almost' there.

The break-even point is at 8.4 dice of damage. Average damage per sneak attack die with the feat is 47/12 ~= 3.92.

4 feats though? I dont know how often sneak attack comes up in your games, but in the ones I have been in it isnt incredibly common. Sometimes on the first round of battle and sometimes when flanking. But those are hard conditions to reach, especially when there is a list of things a mile long that kills it. Even simple concealment. The higher the damage from it goes the more things that are around to nullify it.

I find that beating opponents on initiative is fairly common and flanking is ubiquitous. Tumble, Spring Attack, Mobility, cautious 5-foot steps, and various abilities make it pretty easy to set up a flank.

Concealment is easy enough to overcome, and in my experience isn't particularly common in melee except for invisibility, which has its own counters. (In ranged combat, Improved Precise Shot at mid-high levels removes the problem entirely.)

Take cleave for example. It is a single feat that can grant an entire extra attack now and then. Now, an extra attack means a chance at a whole hit of extra damage again. This feat also drops off in use at higher levels but does more damage. Very similar.

Cleave is one-of-a-kind. If Cleave could be taken with every feat slot (granting +1 attack per dropped foe each time) it would be better than almost all other feats. It can't be, though. If a rogue spends enough time in melee that this would be useful, then they can take the feat on top of sneak attack. It's not like it's restricted to fighters.

 

[Scion]

The break-even point is at 8.4 dice of damage. Average damage per sneak attack die with the feat is 47/12 ~= 3.92.

It is 2.91 with 7 dice, which is close enough for me really.

I find that beating opponents on initiative is fairly common and flanking is ubiquitous. Tumble, Spring Attack, Mobility, cautious 5-foot steps, and various abilities make it pretty easy to set up a flank.

Beating initiative can happen, flanking works sometimes. It really depends on the circumstances greatly. Larger creatures are harder to flank, multiple creatures make it harder to flank, various abilities make it harder to flank, etc.

There are some big limitations there.

Concealment is easy enough to overcome, and in my experience isn't particularly common in melee except for invisibility, which has its own counters. (In ranged combat, Improved Precise Shot at mid-high levels removes the problem entirely.)

Blur? Displacement? Darkness? Fog? Snow? Rain? Blink? Among many others really.

This sort of thing can happen all of the time.

Or, construct, elemental, ooze, plant, swarm, undead, fortification, or a whole pile of other things There are several things that make it impossible or difficult to flank one also.

Cleave is one-of-a-kind. If Cleave could be taken with every feat slot (granting +1 attack per dropped foe each time) it would be better than almost all other feats. It can't be, though. If a rogue spends enough time in melee that this would be useful, then they can take the feat on top of sneak attack. It's not like it's restricted to fighters.

Cleave is one of a kind. However, it is a feat. It is worth roughly one feat. Since the ability I listed is at least comparable to both cleave and weapon specialization then seems that 1 feat equivalency is not out of the question.

sneak attack is nice, but it loses out on power even as it gains more. More and more things are able to make it not work while it gains more dice. Hence the comparison.

This of course helps show just how hard it is to come up with a point system Even among feats themselves there are a huge varience in acceptable power level. For the sneak attack it is limited enough and takes enough time to get much that is an interesting feat but not going to be unbalancing very often.

 

[CRGreathouse]

This of course helps show just how hard it is to come up with a point system Even among feats themselves there are a huge varience in acceptable power level. For the sneak attack it is limited enough and takes enough time to get much that is an interesting feat but not going to be unbalancing very often.

You'll get no argument from me on the difficulty of making a pure point system work.

 

[tjoneslo]

Sent, no problem.

tjoneslo, if you had any doubts about how interesting your project is, the number of people asking for copies should give a hint.

Yes I can see. Thank you very much for sending these on to the interested parties. I don't know why the document is unvavailable, I've asked the administrators. I'm also making updates to it currently and hope to have a new version shortly.

Edit: Apparently the Download section of this site is broken; if you are still interested in this document you can download it from here

 

[devilish]

Quick question : You reference that this work is based
on Class Construction Engine; but some of the numbers don't match:
Core Cleric:CCG = 252 v. Core Cleric:CCE = 240

Was CCE 3.0 and yours is 3.5? Or is yours a revision of
CCE?

Also, have you seen Dr Spunj's Spreadsheet .. apologies if this is old news...

Thanks,
-D

 

[tjoneslo]

I have seen Dr Spunj's spreadsheet, as well as the Point Buy Numbers and The Versatile Hero

This is an revision of the Class Construction Engine, and mine is going to be revised further.

 

[Knight Otu]

Thanks again, CRGreathouse, and good work, tjoneslo!
On first glance, this is a very useful tool.

 

[Angel Tarragon]

I'd like to get my hands on the class construction guide as well. I'd appreciate it if anyone that had it could email it to me. Thanks.

Frukathka [at] yahoo [dot] com

 

[tjoneslo]

Done.

 

[CRGreathouse]

Yes I can see. Thank you very much for sending these on to the interested parties. I don't know why the document is unvavailable, I've asked the administrators. I'm also making updates to it currently and hope to have a new version shortly.

I'm glad I was able to help.

I look forward to your new version. It looks like it will be a useful tool, for eyeballing classes if nothing else. I wonder if WotC has ever tried to make an internal document like this one... if they did, 'unraveling' it would make the task easier.
In any case, good luck!