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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Libertad" data-source="post: 9819016" data-attributes="member: 6750502"><img src="https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/67489a4bbb2d.jpeg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 607px" /> Chapter 5: Character Base Classes Part 1Image From the Sundering Novel SeriesAt 103 pages with 38 classes total, this is easily the longest section of the book, so we'll be covering this chapter in segments. The classes are divided into Core PC Classes, Additional PC Classes, Monster Base Classes, and NPC Classes. The Core Classes are meant to replace the ones in the Player's Handbook. Barring the Assassin, Knight, and Samurai, they have the same names and themes as the ones they're replicating. There's no Bard, Ranger, or Sorcerer listed, meaning that fans of spontaneous arcane casters and Aragorn/Drizz't fans will need to look elsewhere to get their fix.One house rule not yet discussed in the Tomes is the reworking of Full Attacks. In 3.5, a character whose Base Attack Bonus hits +6 gets to make a second attack at a -5 penalty. At +11 they can make up to 2 extra attacks at -5 and -10 respectively, and so on. While there are many ways to create "flurry of death" style builds, the -10 and greater penalties often resulted in attacks that rarely hit, and as a character could only stand in place when Full Attacking this was an unideal tactic unless you locked down your target or are using a ranged weapon. Thus, the Tomes made it so that Full Attack penalties top out at -5. This is actually based on an existing rule in 3.5 concerning monsters using natural weapons as secondary attacks, which top out at a -5 penalty. Naturally, it does up the Damage Per Round of every middle and higher level martial class, but it's still not as unbalancing to the game as Save or Suck effects and it's something that Druid PCs were already aware of and using.The Assassin is our first class, basically a more overtly offensively-minded Rogue with magical tricks up their sleeves. They are a partial caster in the same vein as a Bard, choosing from Sorcerer/Wizard spells of Divination, Illusion, and Necromancy schools. They get quite a few Rogue and Rogue-like features such as Uncanny Dodge, Hide in Plain Sight, and Skill Mastery. But more notably they get some very powerful tools even at lower levels: the aforementioned Hide in Plain Sight comes into play as early as level 3, they get constant benefits of Nondetection at that same level as well, personal weapons cannot be detected via divination magic at 6th level, can craft minor non-magical traps in 10 minutes at 5th level, can make any poison from the DMG using a healer's kit in 1 hour at 11th level, and at 13th level and above they get per-day castings from a choosable list of various utility and save-or-suck spells. But their most notable signature feature is Death Attack, which is a more powerful kind of Sneak Attack that deals more damage, requires less circumstances to trigger, and can trigger multiple times when Full Attacking at 7th level. The only real downside over Sneak Attack is that it requires studying a foe as a full-round action in order to use.Thoughts: The Assassin is a glass cannon par excellence, optimized for taking out enemies fast but aren't very sturdy in a straight-up fight. Their spellcasting schools are incredibly broad, and their class features make them good Roguish types in general. There's no practical reason why you'd play a 3.5 Rogue or other low-Tier stealth class when the Assassin is available. But as I see that the Tomes have a Rogue entry later on in this section, so I have hope that Frank and K have some goodies ready for players who want to be vanilla criminals and not contract killers!The Barbarian is thematically the same as the PHB one, but knocked up a notch for the Tome system's expected tier of power. Most notably, the Rage class feature changes from providing static Strength and Constitution increases to instead being static bonuses to melee attack and damage rolls. Their Fast Movement continues to increase as they level in a similar manner as a Monk, and they have Rage Dice which are akin to Sneak Attack dice in that they add +1d6 damage to each melee attack while in a Rage. The original Barbarian's meager bonuses to Will saves and Reflex saves vs traps are likewise empowered, such as replacing Reflex with Fortitude entirely when raging at 5th level and gaining the benefits of defensive magics such as Protection From Evil and Anti-Magic Field while raging at 3rd and 15th levels respectively. Additionally, they have the constant benefit of Fast Healing, and not just during Rages, which really cuts down on the party expending healing resources on the Barb outside of combat.Thoughts: Much like how the Tome Assassin gains supernatural features to compensate for the many magical and unconventional mobility enemies get at higher levels, the Barbarian gains increased mobility and defensive features in line with this too. Tome Barbarians are actually more in line with 5e's tankier Barbarian in having decent defenses and immunities to keep them going strong. But much like non-magical characters in base 3.5, the Tome Barbarian is very limited in what they can do in regards to non-combat utility, so they still need the help of most other classes for the times when a Hulk Smash isn't enough. They do get Command as a bonus feat which is basically base 3.5's Leadership. But as all their followers must be Barbarians he can't be a Conan type, who as King once had a court jester that was secretly the representative of a god.The Cleric is virtually the same, with the only major changes spotted being some silly flavor text. Same for the Druid.Thoughts: As the Tome's baseline power seeks to elevate PCs to be slightly below or on par with <a href="https://minmaxforum.com/index.php?topic=658.0" target="_blank">Tier 1 classes,</a> it makes sense that they wouldn't make much if any changes. Of course, nothing exists in a vacuum, so the rest of the Tome material can still interact with and even empower these otherwise untouched classes, but we'll get to that later.<img src="https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/f5f0d55ca5a4.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 295px" />Picture is Valeros from PathfinderThe Tome's take on the Fighter is perhaps the most well-known aspect of these rules. It's common knowledge that the 3.5 Fighter is one of the weakest classes, both in and out of combat, and the authors go into more detail on their design decisions while also making it a more mechanically involved class akin to being "the non-magical equivalent to the Wizard." The Tome Fighter is the MacGuyver of non-magical powers: they get an incredibly diverse list of skills, good progression in all saving throws, can enter into a "combat focus" to reroll a single die result, gains a bonus to their Command Rating (part of the Tome's Leadership rework) as they level up, and can craft magic items by treating their Craft skill as their caster level.And the class features they get that apply directly to combat are also versatile and useful, such as gaining temporary use of a [Combat] feat they don't possess but meet the prerequisites for once per hour, being able to 5 foot step as an immediate action, adding 5 feet of reach to any of their weapons, and most notably Foil Action which lets them effectively stunlock an enemy by making a ranged touch attack against them to make them lose the ability to perform their intended action. Their 13th level and higher class features empower their existing abilities rather than granting anything truly new.Thoughts: This rates more highly than the other Tome classes for a variety of reasons. First, the authors go into detail explaining their rationale for design decisions, why they gave them certain abilities at certain levels, and compare and contrast their role in the party alongside other martial classes. Additionally, it manages to have a good amount of options in play at the table and makes effective use of immediate actions to counterattack.My main criticism is that the Tome Fighter still gets a bonus feat every other level, and unlike the 3.5 Fighter it doesn't specify whether these are specifically combat-only or can be anything. While the base 3.5 Fighter also gets a lot of feats, Tome feats are notable in that they give you a bunch of distinct abilities rather than one neat ability, so this is an awful lot for anyone to juggle. Compounding this is that a lot of feat abilities are persistent boons rather than spells which must be activated in order to see use, so in a way Tome Fighters can be harder to keep track of in play than some primary spellcasters.My other lesser criticism is that Foil Action is very spammy: the vast majority of NPCs and monsters have extremely low touch AC at all levels of player, and the Fighter will easily be able to hit most enemies this way. Barring facing off multiple equally strong opponents, there's no reason a Fighter shouldn't use Foil Action every round, and when PCs end up with superior numbers it becomes trivial to stunlock enemies combined with the system's multitude of other save-or-suck effects. But this last part is less of a problem with the Tome Fighter in particular and more a problem with the game. If you want to play D&D with workable boss battles and solo enemies, play 4th or 5th Edition instead.The Paladin is another rework of a popular archetype. What's peculiar about this Tomeified version is that it adheres to an actual real-world moral system: the philosophical teachings of Immanuel Kant. Their Code of Conduct ultimately prioritizes intentions over consequence and that the laws and ethos they uphold are based on "do I want everyone else to act this way?"This Paladin is very similar conceptwise to the 3.5 version, but is a spontaneous caster whose spell list goes up to 6th level and they use Charisma instead of Wisdom to determine save DC and capability of casting. The most notable changes are that their Smite Evil has a d6-based damage progression at every even-numbered level, their Aura grants personal immunity and allies +4 on saves vs a wider array of effects as they level up, they gain Mettle at 9th level which is basically Evasion but for Fortitude and Will saves, and at middle to higher levels can Quicken paladin spells to be cast as a swift action. Additionally, their paladin mount can be any cohort who is 2 levels lower, but they only restriction is that they have to be a creature they can ride and shares their moral code.Thoughts: The widening of spell levels and addition of more utility-based magic gives the Tome Paladin a wider variety of tricks, although they are still first and foremost a holy combatant in role. The d6-based damage progression is in line with the Tome Barbarian's, although much like the original Paladin it can only work on evil targets and thus their combat contribution varies quite a bit based on the campaign's array of foes. Additionally, their mount can now include a wide variety of creatures, from metallic dragons to possibly even giants carrying the paladin on their shoulders! The Fast Casting lets them apply low-level buffs and similar magic in combat by making use of their swift action, and their Aura's immunities more or less map up to effects that become increasingly common penalties at those levels of play.My main criticism of the class is that much like the playable monsters rules, the open-ended nature of the mount stats needs some eyeballing to ensure that the creature/NPC chosen is a suitable option. Furthermore, while I am not a philosopher nor familiar with Immanuel Kant's works, the insertion of a real-world belief system to be representative of what is Good at the cosmic level opens up all sorts of cans of worms. Maybe Kant's philosophy does work with the fantasy archetype of the Paladin, but the rest of the Tome series doesn't really engage with the broader cosmic implications of this, nor provides examples of what a D&D setting running by the principles of Kantian philosophy looks like.<img src="https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/0851d43424e1.jpg" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="" />Picture of Sturm Brightblade from Dragons of Autumn TwilightThe Knight is a specialized martial class, serving first and foremost as a tank that imposes penalties on enemies that ignore them in combat. Unlike most other classes, they top out at 10th level rather than 20th, meaning that campaigns going into the double-digits necessitate multi-classing. Their most notable feature is Designate Opponent, where they automatically "mark" a foe who can hear them and is within medium range. If the mark damages the Knight before the Knight's next turn, all is well, but should they ignore the Knight and/or be unable to damage them then the class adds an extra d6 damage die per Knight level per attack they have on the marked target. The majority of their other class features are defensive in nature, such as granting +2 to Armor Class and Reflex saves to adjacent allies, gaining personal Spell Resistance, aggroing mindless enemies who must attack the Knight if they fail a Will save, can auto-recover from ability score damage as a move action, and so on. At 10th level they can join or found a particular Knightly Order which grants them a unique set of abilities, such as Fey Knight granting immortality and Damage Reduction 10/Iron. Like Paladins, they do have a Code of Conduct, but one that is much more lenient and based less on morality and more on "ensuring a fair fight."Thoughts: I'm kind of iffy on the Knight. There's no explanation given as to why it tops out at 10th level, and unlike the Paladin it is rather lacking in out of combat utility options. The Designate Opponent is a good means of drawing enemy fire, but it doesn't truly "lock down" a target that has AoE or multiple ranged attacks as they can still damage the Knight from a distance before returning their attention to the rest of the party. Furthermore, while they do gain a good amount of defensive features, their Spell Resistance is rather paltry and they don't gain outright immunity to effects like the Paladin does, so they are still vulnerable to particular debuffs and status effects. The Knightly Orders also vary in general usability: the fey knight's Damage Reduction is easily overcome by a common material, and immunity to aging isn't going to come up in most campaigns. Then there's the Imperial Knight's Zone of Truth and Protection Against Chaos, which are much more situational and don't play into the class' strengths. Compare this to the Chaos Knight and Dragon Knight gaining decent defensive boosts to their Armor Class, or the Angelic Knight who gets permanent fly and protection from evil.The Monk is our other significant martial class upgrade. The original 3.5 Monk was widely considered one of the weakest classes in the core rules, the main reason being that it favored sheer quantity over quality in terms of class features, many of which didn't scale well in most campaigns or synergize with each other. The Tome Monk instead bakes down the multitude of class features to a mix-and-match "choose your own themed abilities" via Fighting Styles which are gained by level. They can only have one Fighting Style activated at a time and only for a certain number of rounds. The lower-level Fighting Styles include impressive <a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/BadassNormal" target="_blank">Badass Normal</a> and slightly supernatural abilities such as a trip/disarm counterattack or their slam attacks ignoring Damage Reduction and Hardness, with the middle and higher level features become more significant such as short-range teleportation, an AoE sound blast attack, and strikes empowered by potent magic such as Disentegrate and Feeblemind. Higher-level Fighting Styles have a shorter duration than lower-level ones, meaning that for protracted battles Monks might have a reason to keep their "ultimate techniques" in reserve if they can't get to the BBEG immediately.The various non-Fighting Style based class features include the typical D&D Monk stuff, such as Spell Resistance, a natural Slam attack that serves as their unarmed strike equivalent, an unarmored AC bonus that is much greater than the 3.5 Monk's but isn't contingent on Wisdom and thus reduces Multi-Attribute Dependency, and being able to jump really far and not die of old age.Thoughts: I rate the Tome Monk higher than the Knight but below the Barbarian and Fighter. I particularly like the customizable Fighting Styles, and they do have some degree of out-of-combat utility. However, such utility is mostly limited to short-duration and movement-based stuff such as teleportation or air walking, the latter of which feels a bit superfluous when they can jump really far by default. Greater Dispelling and Gate stand out as being the broadest-focused utility based Fighting Style abilities, but in being middle and higher level abilities respectively they won't see play in most campaigns. Additionally, not all Fighting Styles are created equal, even at the same level: the lower-level styles include very useful options such as constant concealment or the iconic Stunning Strike, but also have less impressive options such as "slam attack deals 2 Constitution damage or reduces target's movement rate by 10 feet" which are more situational. Meanwhile, the higher-level results include varying effects such as "your slam forces your target to save or die," a buff that lets you become incorporeal, or can cast Gate, which are alongside less powerful options such as being able to recover nonlethal damage every round equal to your level or using the violent version of Telekinesis.The Fighter, by contrast, has much more skills and also many more feats, which via a strict legalist reading of the rules as per Frank and K standards can include [Skill] and [General] feats in addition to [Combat]. If I wanted to play something like a Shadowdancer-style monk or Warrior-Philosopher, I'd be better off playing as a Tome Fighter with Monk weapons and take advantage of the superior Hit Die, surfeit of feats, and Foil Action.And now, we finally get to the Rogue! With all the talk and praise the Tome Fighter got for empowering noncasters, I'm excited to see what they have in store for the other major mundane fantasy archetype! Will they get something cool like multi-target mage hand pickpocketing? How about permanent Glibness for running confidence schemes, or a fence that can immediately ascertain the function and value of any magic item that they touch? Or really play it old-school, with a Loki-style shapeshifting trickster of supernatural origin? We've seen how the prior classes talked about how middle and higher-level characters needing features to make them able to compete with powerful monsters and magic. The possibilities are endless!Well, the Tome Rogue…is exactly the same as the 3.5 Player's Handbook version. Heck, even its Sneak Attack still doesn't work on a huge portion of the Monster Manual!Thoughts:<img src="https://media1.tenor.com/m/QgTx6fv4IpAAAAAd/el-risitas-juan-joya-borja.gif" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " data-size="" style="width: 378px" />The Samurai is our final unique Core class of the Tomes. As can be expected, they are a martial class first and foremost, beginning play with a masterwork weapon of choice that they treat as their Ancestral Weapon. They can perform rituals and spend gold pieces to personally enhance the weapon's features, and their Code of Conduct equivalent is a Pledge of Loyalty where they serve an authority figure referred to as their "Lord." This grants them immunity to mind-affecting effects that would cause them to act against the interests of their Lord and Lord's family; Samurai who don't serve a Lord are ronin, and have +4 on saves vs mind-affecting effects to compensate. The bulk of the Samurai's class features are offensive in nature: at lower and middle levels much of these take the form of specific bonus [Combat] feats, along with a Kiai shout which lets them turn a successful hit into a confirmed critical hit a limited (but generous) amount of times per day. They gain more supernatural defensive abilities at middle to higher levels, most notably the ability to parry magical attacks targeting them and dispelling ongoing magical effects by attacking the affected area.Thoughts: I'm just going to say this ahead of time, but I'm not fond of the idea of a Samurai (or Ninja, for that matter) as a unique stand-alone character class. While I am aware that more than a few D&D classes draw from specific European folkloric archetypes such as the Celtic-inspired Druids or the Tolkienish Ranger, by 3rd Edition and later many core classes are workable enough to reflect a broad array of archetypes. For example, the Middle Eastern Sha'ir is a poet who has magical powers, which sounds pretty close to a Bard, while the multitude of unarmed and wrestling fighting styles throughout the world can reflect all kinds of Monks (and maybe Barbarians and Fighters). The Samurai and Ninja archetypes as seen in folklore and pop culture (in both Japan and the West) don't do anything that a Fighter/Paladin or Assassin/Rogue don't already do respectively. So such attempts at making them distinct classes often end up with a stereotypical "they're different because they're Asian" vibe.But on to practical mechanical analysis! The Samurai is pretty much built to be a Dynasty Warriors-style "wade into a mass of mooks and start chopping" character, and a passable anti-mage warrior at higher levels. There is one notable downside to the class; due to how critical hits work in 3.5, weapons vary widely in not just how often they crit, but the multiplier of the crit as well. The intent by the designers was to encourage frequency-based payouts: do you want to take a rapier which has a mere double damage but can crit a lot more often, or a scythe that rarely crits but can quadruple your damage instead? While the Ancestral Weapon of the class can take all manner of forms, I imagine that most Samurai players are going for the Feudal Japanese Warrior vibe and would want to use a katana. In 3.5, katanas are bastard swords that have a 19-20 threat range for double damage. Overall, not very impressive. Compare this to a scythe or even a shortbow/longbow, which have x4 and x3 critical hit rates respectively. The scythe is one of the only weapons that has a x4 modifier, so most players choosing Tome Samurai were going around with scythes in actual play. Which I suppose is fine for some, but doesn't really fit many people's mental image of a samurai.As can be expected, the Wizard remains unchanged from the base 3.5 rules.Thoughts So Far: The Tome classes are objectively pretty powerful, on line with optimized PC builds. But unlike most optimized builds that require dumpster-diving through splatbooks in order to chain together the right feats, Prestige Classes, equipment, etc, the optimization comes pretty much pre-packaged for convenience. But even then, not all of the classes are on a level playing field: the Knight is a one-trick pony that gets gradually outclassed by the Paladin, the Fighter eats the Monk's lunch via sheer versatility and Foil Action, the Samurai pigeonholes players into picking from a narrow list of weapons, and the Rogue is just depressing when the Assassin does everything better. Even the choosable class features, as outlined in the Knight and Monk entries, have superior and inferior choices, which if this wasn't a Tome product would see such imbalance eviscerated by the Gaming Den regulars.I understand and respect having a default baseline of power in a campaign. I also understand and respect attempts to bring the less-powerful non-magical classes up a peg. However, they still treat symptoms of the problems in 3.5, they still haven't discussed how they'd handle the Bard and Sorcerer, and the Core classes as they stand feel kind of barren in comparison to the wilder landscape of splatbook options out there. I realize that this latter criticism is entirely subjective on my part, but if I wanted to play a D&D style fantasy game with a tightly-defined list of archetypes designed to be on the same playing field of power…I would be playing another game than 3rd Edition.Join us next time as we carry on and review some Additional PC Classes!</blockquote>

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