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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Arkhandus" data-source="post: 4805137" data-attributes="member: 13966">RE: The Skinchanger......BROKEN!!!!!Just so ya know, this post is meant as constructive criticism (as most of it is analysis/reasoning).  I just haven't determined what exactly you should drop from the class to fix it.  See the last line of this post for my summary of what needs to go or be compensated for at least, and note the questions just above that line.  (I was pretty busy and distracted back around December, so I never got around to commenting earlier on this while it was still new.)Firstly: since you gave them full BAB and made them fairly melee-oriented, the best comparison is to a barbarian.  You gave them two degrees weaker HD, but one degree higher skill points, which puts them overall 1-5 feats behind a barbarian right there......which is entrely eclipsed by their high Reflex and Will saves, and then some.Improved Toughness (Complete Warrior) is too strong for a single feat IMO, duplicating most of a +2 Constitution's benefits (with Great Fortitude easily making up the difference), so I don't consider an average of 1 more hp/level to be worth only 1 feat, more like 4 or 5 (as in 4 or 5 copies of a fixed/houseruled Toughness feat; I typically houserule it to grant 4 or 5 hp per copy, which is much more fair; and I would lean towards 5/copy).  So the 6 extra base Reflex (equal to 3 Lightning Reflexes feats, if it were possible to take that feat more than once) makes up for most of the lost HP after considering the greater SP and class skills (i.e. the greater versatility and utility of the class), especially since Reflex is what's used to avoid most non-physical damage.The 6 extra Will over a barbarian makes up the difference, and makes up for the lack of medium armor proficiency and the lack of Fast Movement (or at least close enough).  The class has no weaknesses except a slight, slight susceptibility to prolonged physical beatings (and their other class features pretty well mitigate THAT as an option for victory against a skinchanger).Scent and Morphic Senses pretty much balance out the lack of barbarian Uncanny Dodge and Improved Uncanny Dodge (they help the skinchanger detect enemies easily before they even get close, and can even pinpoint invisible foes, plus Scent is useable for tracking).Morphic Sight makes up for whatever bit of Fast Movement's utility they lack, and a bit of the utility of Rage outside of combat.Shapechanger makes up for the barbarian Damage Reduction, and is really just slightly more easily bypassed (while a few PCs and NPCs might carry silver weapons, they're not that common, and how are they even going to know that they need silver to properly hurt the skinchanger?  Sure, they might make a sufficient Knowledge check to identify the skinchanger's vulnerability to silver, after observing the character's shapeshifting, but it's not likely to be their best weapon that's silvered).  That's made up for by the other benefits of the Shapechanger class feature, which also compensates for Trap Sense.  Plus they get their DR much sooner than a barbarian would accumulate so much DR.Morphic Freedom is just plain broken by itself.  Constant immunity to crits, stunning, and anything that would catch them or impede their movement, plus double the earlier DR value?  There are reasons that Freedom of Movement is a mid-level spell with a modest duration and only available to certain classes, and why a magic Ring of Freedom of Movement is kinda expensive.  And why Stoneskin is a mid-level spell with a costly component that is only available to certain classes.  And why common PC races aren't elementals, constructs, plants, or undead, and why even Warforged are given only partial crit/status-effect immunity.  A high-level warblade, even, would have to stay firmly planted on the ground to use the stance for crit immunity, and would only be able to use another stance if they were 20th-level (plus they would need to spend a feat if they wanted to have both that stance and the DR 5/- stance).  Morphic Freedom basically removes the only slight gaps in the class' excellent defenses (and some of those gaps are already lessened by the Shapechanger class feature).I'm not even gonna count Morphic Freedom in my analysis, because it's better than all the rest of the barbarian's remaining class features for comparison.Finally getting to the main class features........  Morphic Aspect is useable at will with no limits, so the abilities dependant on it are thus also unlimited in use.  The Survival bonus and at-will use of Morphic Aspect makes up for the small number of Rages per day that a barbarian gets, as well as compensating for the barbarian's Tireless Rage and then some.  Morphic Armor gradually makes up for the AC bonuses that would otherwise be gained from an Amulet of Natural Armor and a Ring of Protection (assuming that Morphic Aspect will prevent the character from having someone put those items on him or her after changing form; otherwise, it's an even more powerful class feature), so it's fairly useful.  That's worth at least the Constitution and morale bonuses of a barbarian's Rages each day, reducing how often he'll be hurt.  Probably also makes up for Indomitable Will, given how limited those three Raging benefits are in application.Natural Arsenal's enhancement bonus is worth the base Rage's bonus to Strength and Greater Rage's bonus to Strength, factoring in the utility and the typical barbarian's two-handed power-attacking strength bonuses to damage.  The scaling base damage or number of attacks makes up for the lack of iterative weapon attacks to some degree, but is overall somewhat weaker.  Morphic Combat is sure to compensate for that.That leaves Mighty Rage's Strength bonus, martial weapon proficiencies, plus the Rage penalties and barbarian Illiteracy.  Morphic Aspect's own limitations compensate for these (assuming it limits magic item use as severely as it seems), maybe even going a bit further than that.  However, the actual benefits for each Morphic Aspect (especially since they get some kind of extra benefit at every other level from it, according to the table) are sure to more than make up for that.  The sample Morphic Aspect forms you gave afterward certainly make up for it and then some, and they don't even cover whatever Morphic Aspect benefits they're supposed to gain beyond 1st-level (or do they just learn one Morphic Aspect form at each of those 10 levels?  Your description doens't say anything about it).Also, it's not clear from the description if the character can don magic items, armor, and such AFTER changing forms (it's not clear if those just meld into the new form as well), in order to receive the full benefits of those magic items regardless.  In that case the class is even more overpwoered.  Plus, regardless, it has a lot of inherant versatility in its class features and whatnot, so that's extra value compared to the hit-things-and-run-around-in-the-woods-and-grunt-at-people barbarian.Leaving you with Morphic Freedom and most benefits of Morphic Aspects as overkill.</blockquote>

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