D&D 3.x New 3.5 Custom Class, need opinions

[Vutall]

Hm, so its pretty much agreed by everyone to move the Animal Companion down to level 4 with the Druid level -3?

 

[Mon]

Just some random thoughts...

If you've dropped Threaten and the heavy proficiencies, then shifting Animal Companion to 4th would leave a 1st level Survivalist of Clan Zaitsev with only Toughness and Illiteracy as class features at first level. Clearly inferior to the otherwise comparable barbarian's Rage, Fast Movement, and Illiteracy.

In this case, I'd be tempted to leave the animal companion as-is at 1st level. Your flavour text mentions clan members growing up with their beasts so starting out with them makes sense from that POV. This raises the question, though: Is a full-strength animal companion too much for a d12-HD/full BAB class to have at first level? I'd guess that it is, but I wouldn't be sure.

An alternative might be to shift the companion to 4th, and replace Threaten with something suitable. Maybe take the whole 'calm like the winter air before a blizzard' thing from your flavour text and turn it into something. Maybe call it "Battle Serenity" or somesuch.

Just dropping random thoughts. Hope it helps.

 

[Nellisir]

An alternative might be to shift the companion to 4th, and replace Threaten with something suitable. Maybe take the whole 'calm like the winter air before a blizzard' thing from your flavour text and turn it into something. Maybe call it "Battle Serenity" or somesuch.

Just dropping random thoughts. Hope it helps.

Battle Serenity reminds me of the (Dragon?) article about giving fighters a "focus" ability or feat set similar to psionic focus. Something similar could work here; ie a full-round action to focus grants a +1 to attack, save, damage, or AC (choose one), and can be expended as a free action for a single +3 bonus.

That's off the top of my head; you could look up psionic focus for details.

Threaten is like the 4e fighter's Mark ability?

 

[Arkhandus]

Alright, I'll admit that my first impression was a little overly critical of the animal companion and feats. But Threaten did have to go, and at least something else.

The original version got Toughness and maybe Endurance in place of Fast Movement, a fighter feat in place of Indomitable Will, Great Fortitude and maybe another fighter feat in place of Trap Sense, a third fighter feat in place of two or so Rages per day, Mettle of Fortitude in place of another two or so Rages per day, heavy armor and tower shield proficiency in place of any other Rages per day and some of the Greater Rage benefits, and an Animal Companion in place of Mighty/Tireless Rage benefits. Plus Threaten on top of that.

As it is, I still think a full-power Animal Companion is of more use than Raging, and it doesn't carry any of the drawbacks of Raging. Having a dire bear, megaraptor, or what-have-you with extra hit dice to fight beside you, flank with you, soak up damage for you, and dish out more damage with you is handy. Not to mention any of their non-combat uses (even if for nothing else than scaring the bejeezus out of other people).

Now, with Threaten and the extra proficiencies gone, it's certainly closer to balanced. I'm still leery of them getting quite as many feats, but at least now they're close. I would just ditch Toughness and maybe Great Fortitude now.

Regarding the alignment requirements: I"m not objecting to it from a flavor standpoint, and it's certainly no more restrictive than a barbarian's (being chaotic doesn't deny you access to anything that being nonlawful wouldn't have; it's still just no access to lawful classes like knight, monk, or paladin; though I can see the argument that it just may, slightly, inhibit some rare munchkin cleric or PrC combo that requires a lawful patron deity). It's just that the class doesn't seem to have any need for chaotic alignment in order to function, and has no drawbacks for changing to another alignment. They don't have Rage and they don't lose anything for becoming nonchaotic; it's not even stated if they cannot advance further as a Survivalist that way (though it's a fair assumption).

Setting-wise, I just don't see much need for a whole base class to represent one small group. Base classes are supposed to be more general than that. And what's to prevent people outside of Clan Zaitsev from becoming Survivalists? It's not like it's impossible for a member of Clan Zaitsev to turn traitor or become an exile or adopt someone outside the Clan or do something else that would result in people outside the Clan learning the same kind of training.

Nor any reason why other wilderness tribes or something wouldn't potentially develop Survivalists from similar conditions in their environment and lifestyle. Plenty of people around the real world have traditionally relied heavily on certain animals and formed close bonds with them; how do you think we got all these innumerable breeds of domesticated cats, dogs, horses, and such, many of whom bear only a vague resemblance to their wild kin? Horses and dogs have been especially important in many places.


Besides making a whole class for them, there's always the option of using regional feats or ancestor feats (as detailed in the Forgotten Realms Campaign Setting, Oriental Adventures, and Dragon Magazine), and/or racial substitution levels (as described in Unearthed Arcana) to represent a particular culture's background and training. And as mentioned, feats like Wild Cohort can help. In any case, it's your game, so if you really want to distinguish this Clan Zaitsev with their own base class, that's up to you.

 

[Arkhandus]

Battle Serenity reminds me of the (Dragon?) article about giving fighters a "focus" ability or feat set similar to psionic focus. Something similar could work here; ie a full-round action to focus grants a +1 to attack, save, damage, or AC (choose one), and can be expended as a free action for a single +3 bonus.

That's off the top of my head; you could look up psionic focus for details.

Threaten is like the 4e fighter's Mark ability?

Hrum, I don't remember that article, but I don't have every issue so I could just not know of it. I do know that they had an Arcane Focus article, at least, for arcane casters. It does, however, remind me just a bit of the Combat Focus feats in Player's Handbook II. The Combat Focus feat itself granted a Will save bonus once you focus yourself at the start of a fight (by hitting an opponent or something IIRC), which doubled once you had something like 4+ Combat Focus feats in total. The other CF feats granted other benefits while focused, which also improved once you had 4 or more of those feats in total. Check the PHB 2 to see if those feats would be a good fit for Clan Zaitsev, Vutall.

 

[Nellisir]

Hrum, I don't remember that article, but I don't have every issue so I could just not know of it. I do know that they had an Arcane Focus article, at least, for arcane casters. It does, however, remind me just a bit of the Combat Focus feats in Player's Handbook II. The Combat Focus feat itself granted a Will save bonus once you focus yourself at the start of a fight (by hitting an opponent or something IIRC), which doubled once you had something like 4+ Combat Focus feats in total. The other CF feats granted other benefits while focused, which also improved once you had 4 or more of those feats in total. Check the PHB 2 to see if those feats would be a good fit for Clan Zaitsev, Vutall.

I'm almost certainly conflating the two in my mind, then - the arcane focus article in Dragon, and the combat focus feats in PH2. It's been ages since I looked at them, but they keep cropping into my mind for some reason.