New Class: Unbound Soul

[Phasics]

Mabe has been suggested before or maybe I simply haven’t come across it in the books yet but had an interesting idea for a new core class.

It’s kinda tricky to explain and needs a heap of work but eh anyway lets see how it comes across. let me know if you think it lakcing anythig or nedes anything to really make it work well.

basically this class is designed to steal the body of another creature and use it as its own. Normally the class starts like as one of the core races.

Level 1 Soul Swap 1/day
Level 2 Attributes of the soul I (minor)
Level 3 Attributes of the soul I (major)
Level 4 Soul Swap 2/day
Level 5 Attributes of the soul II (minor)
Level 6 Attributes of the soul II (major)
Level 7 Soul Swap 3/day
Level 8 Attributes of the soul III (minor)
Level 9 Attributes of the soul III (major)
Level 10 Coexistence, Soul Consume
Level 11 Soul Swap 4/day
Level 12 Attributes of the soul IV (minor)
Level 13 Attributes of the soul IV (minor)
Level 14 Soul Swap 5/Day
Level 15 Attributes of the soul V (minor)
Level 16 Attributes of the soul V (minor)
Level 17 Soul Swap 6/day
Level 18 Soul Perfection (Minor)
Level 19 Soul Perfection (Major)
Level 20 Free Spirit

Soul Swap: As a full round action the character may make an attempt to transfer his soul from his current body into the body of any creature in front of him. This attempt requires 3 DC10 checks vs. the other creature.

The 3 checks pit the 3 mental attributes of each creature against each other
INT vs. INT
WIS vs. WIS
CHA vs. CHA

INT +(Score -10) +10 = DC of creature
INT +(Score -10)+ Level of US = Roll modifier for the check

e.g.
Kobold is the one about to be possessed by Phasics
Kobold Int 10, Wis 9, Cha 8
Phasics Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 17

First check
INT DC10 roll 1d20+7
WIS DC9 roll 1d20+5
CHA DC8 roll 1d20+8 (since this roll cannot be failed it is an instant win)

Phasics Rolls poorly gets an 6 and 2 on d20
INT DC10 rolled 6+7 = win
WIS DC9 rolled 2+5 = fail

2 out of 3 equals a successful transfer however 1 round is spent helpless because not perfect
3 out of 3 = perfect swap no penalty
1 or 0 = attempt fails and Characters suffers 1d3 or 1d6 (respectively) damage to each mental stat which is recovered after a nights rest.

When a swap is made mental stats are maintained but the physical stats and all abilities and bonuses of the physical creature form as taken. abilities and bonuses from the old body are lost.
he creature you swapped with gets your body and any abilities that came with it.



Attributes of the Soul Minor and Major
Upon reaching 2nd level for minor and 3rd level for major the character must decide what attributes he wishes to add to his soul. These attributes are attached to the soul and are transfer during a body swap. These choices cannot be changed once selected and grow in power at the appropriate levels
________________________________________ _________________________
Soul's Fist:
This attribute focuses on using your mental abilities to increase the physical abilities of your current form.
Minor:
at rank I this allows you to add the modifiers of INT WIS and CHA to your physical stats in any order you choose. (e.g. Phasics Int 16, Wis 14, Cha 17, +3, +2, +3. which for a STR10 DEX10 CON10 could go STR13 DEX12 CON13 , stats cannot be stacked)
this is temporary lasting 10mins/level and can be used 1/day at rank 1 and retroactively increase if the stat is increased.
Higher ranks give multipliers of bonuses and can be used more times per day.
Major
same as minor except bonuses are chosen when taking a new body and are fixed and permanent.

Soul's Mind
a character focuses his mental abilities upon themselves reinforcing them and making him stronger and more able to swap with more powerful minds.
Minor:
at rank 1 attribute modifiers for INT WIS and CHA are added to those same stats e.g. INT16 (+3)-> INT19. 1/day at rank one
Major:
same as minor except bonuses are permanent and fixed and retroactively increase if the stat is increased


Soul's Power (a bit unsure on this one but I like the idea)
A character focuses on the both the arcane and divine similar to a Mystical Theruge.
Minor: US level = caster level, spell progression as per Ranger/Paladin and can access both arcane and divine spells as wiz/cleric
Major
same as minor except spell progression as per bard.


Soul's Capture
Character can permanently take supernatural abilities and racial traits from one body to another leaving the previous body without them.
Minor:
Keep 1 supernatural ability or trait from a previous form per rank (5 at rank 5)
Major:
+1 abilities attributes etc per rank over minor

DM: optional can make character roll a DC check vs. taking a supernatural power if DM consider it may be too powerful e.g. dragon breath etc.

Soul's Construct
Character soul can inhabit inanimate objects or creatures that are mindless such as constructs.
Minor: it takes no effort to take over a mindless creature or object. The character can however only function in a mindless creature he has no control if he were to posses a rock. He can still cast spells from a rock or swap souls but he cannot make the rock move.
Major: same as minor except character can inhabit inanimate object and levitate at will 30feet/round. Object weight must be less than the normal load weight allowed for STR if the highest mental stat was used instead.
E.g. character can possess a sword and be used by a fellow party member. The character can add properties to the sword depending on what other minor attributes he has selected
________________________________________ _________________________
Heehaw as I said needs some work

Coexistence:
Character can share a body with another mind. If other mind is willing this is done at no penalty and the US brings all his attributes to the new body which the other mind can use to his advantage (e.g. Soul's Fist and jump into the parties barbarian to make him extra powerful)
Character can also force himself into an unwilling mind and keep the other mind locked away. The 3 checks to swap a mind must be made each 12hr/s of possession, if a character loses a check he becomes trapped and the other mind is relased. he can then only mount an attempt to regain control or escape every 12/hrs

Soul Consume:
Character can also choose to consume a soul during transfer is all 3 checks are successful. Consume may only be attempted during the initial transference if it fails the character must either coexist or swap the other soul to the previous
body.

Soul perfection:
The ultimate an final major and minor attributes. Atm consider it Soul Attributes VI

Free Spirit:
Normally if the body this character is in dies he must immediately find a new body within x rounds or his spirit dissipates. Free spirit allows his soul to travel and exist without a body, although he cannot affect anything on the prime material plane in this form. However he can now travel to the astral plane at will and onto other planes possessing local creature of the plain if he wishes. He can also move in an out of bodies as many times per day as he/she wants, but must always make 3 checks.


END


Anyway I was also thinking of making a cap that the monster you want to take over cant have more HD than your current level or loses every HD over your level which may cause a loss or decrease in abilities (DM as always gets the final say). Also the possession checks would need to be rigourously tested to make sure is wasn’t to hard or easy to take creatures over.

Like I said needs alot of work but would be seriously fun to role-play.

 

[Phasics]

Just in case you got bored and missed reading half the post it was long sorry

anyway here are some exmaple situtaion that this calls could do.

Party travelling through thick forest. US (Unbound Soul) see an eagle flying overhead . He atempts a soul transfer and easiy suceeds. He take control of the eagle a serveys the regions from the sky. He looks down to see his previous body and transfers his soul back into it. he open his eyes and looks up to see the eagle fly away. He then look at the party who are in hysterics. While he was flying the eagles mind was trying to come to terms with a human body trying to fly with usless fleshy arms hehehe.

Combat related
Party encounters a group of kobalds who are attacking from a ridge. The US sees one of them and atempt a soul coexist. his previous body slumps to the ground in a coma but still techincally alive. The US crushes the frail kobold mind as he enters the body. he quickly has a look to find himslef in the middle of a tihglky pakced kolold group none to wiser they now have a dangerous foe in thier midst. The US (who taken Souls Power) casts a delayed fireball blast over his head and trnasfers back into his old body leaving the kobolds body slump to the ground, the fireball goes off next round and the kobolds are toast

 

[Dinkeldog]

I'm going to move this over to the House Rules forum.

 

[Sravoff]

I do very much like the idea.....though I didn't read the whole thing yet. I'll get back to it in a little while and tel you what I think.

-Sravoff

 

[Jack Simth]

That's.... a pretty nasty class, straight out of the box, even at lower levels. It's got a fairly severe case of Multiple Attribute Dependency (Int, Wis, Cha) but can simply ignore Str, Dex, and Con... at least at character creation; first critter you encounter, you replace (and your subject is left in a body with which it is unfamiliar, crippled by the physical attributes you selected just to spite it, and readily disposed of).

Consider the assorted CR 1 monsters - a small Air elemental, say (CR 1) - Int 4, Wis/Cha 11 - for a use of his ability, he gets a 100 foot perfect fly speed, 9 hp, a base AC of 17, 60-foot darkvision, and a dex of 17 (possibly more bennifits, depending on what all gets captured).

Or maybe a Pseudodragon - Int/Wis/Cha 10/12/10 - fairly easily captured, gain: 15 hp, Blindsense 60 ft., darkvision 60 ft., immunity to sleep and paralysis, low-light vision, spell resistance 19, telepathy 60 ft, 60-foot good fly speed, and a base AC of 18, as well as a poisionous sting.

At later levels, higher CR stuff can be taken - a bearded devil, say, at CR 5 - with Int/Wis/Cha of 6/10/10, it's gone rather quickly. At that point, the Unbound Soul can probably keep the Damage Reduction (it's Su....) Or maybe a Phase Spider, to capture the nifty at-will Etherial Jaunt....

At CR 10, we can conquer that nifty Clay Golem - it's mindless - if we took that minor trait, and gain it's Magic Immunity....

Umm, I don't care for the power curve.....

Also, several of your Minor and Major attributes don't scale, and stop providing additional bennifits after level 2 or 3 (for Minor and Major, respectively)

 

[Phasics]

That's.... a pretty nasty class, straight out of the box, even at lower levels. It's got a fairly severe case of Multiple Attribute Dependency (Int, Wis, Cha) but can simply ignore Str, Dex, and Con... at least at character creation; first critter you encounter, you replace (and your subject is left in a body with which it is unfamiliar, crippled by the physical attributes you selected just to spite it, and readily disposed of).

Consider the assorted CR 1 monsters - a small Air elemental, say (CR 1) - Int 4, Wis/Cha 11 - for a use of his ability, he gets a 100 foot perfect fly speed, 9 hp, a base AC of 17, 60-foot darkvision, and a dex of 17 (possibly more bennifits, depending on what all gets captured).

Or maybe a Pseudodragon - Int/Wis/Cha 10/12/10 - fairly easily captured, gain: 15 hp, Blindsense 60 ft., darkvision 60 ft., immunity to sleep and paralysis, low-light vision, spell resistance 19, telepathy 60 ft, 60-foot good fly speed, and a base AC of 18, as well as a poisionous sting.

At later levels, higher CR stuff can be taken - a bearded devil, say, at CR 5 - with Int/Wis/Cha of 6/10/10, it's gone rather quickly. At that point, the Unbound Soul can probably keep the Damage Reduction (it's Su....) Or maybe a Phase Spider, to capture the nifty at-will Etherial Jaunt....

At CR 10, we can conquer that nifty Clay Golem - it's mindless - if we took that minor trait, and gain it's Magic Immunity....

Umm, I don't care for the power curve.....

Also, several of your Minor and Major attributes don't scale, and stop providing additional bennifits after level 2 or 3 (for Minor and Major, respectively)

Good points thanks

as for the atributes that dont scale Soul's Power and Soul's Construct,thats on purpose as I believe these are powerful enough as is and scale as charcter level improves.

Also I just came up with a new Condition
Character Level cannot exceed ECL of monster being taken over and perhaps even slightly lower ECL than char level (by ECL I think I mean some modifed form of Creature CR)

I think this will help regulating the class

Another condition may be having to make additonal DC checks to be able to control bodies which arnt humanoid, perhaps even a daily DC check against losing control of the body the more forgien it is.

Also using special racial abilites could require DC checks or not be able to use them for 24hrs before trying again, thus the more powerful atributes like fly breathweapons can be given higher DC to make using them harder. The DC would decrease the longer the time spent in the body as you ahve time to practice using it.

Acutally that not a bad idea either each atribute takes a DC check an xhrs of passive practice before you can effectivly use it.

Also the 3 DC checks system could probably use some tweaking. I want it so that taking over lesser creatures is easy but higher level creature is harder but still possible.

 

[Jack Simth]

Good points thanks

as for the atributes that dont scale Soul's Power and Soul's Construct,thats on purpose as I believe these are powerful enough as is and scale as charcter level improves.

Soul's Power actually does scale, as it grants a spell progression which gets better as the character advances in level; Soul's Construct is indeed quite powerful... and also totally front-loaded; consider an Unbound Soul 3/Sorceror X with the Still Spell, Silent Spell, and Eschew Materials feats, taking Soul's Construct Major and Soul's Capture Minor. Anytime he finds something with a Su ability he wants, he gets it - pops in, steals it, and pops out, losing the old Su ability he had; hope he never encounters a Roper.... and if he's killed, he can hop into a nearby rock/dagger/sword/shield/whatever and continue casting away (although at effectively a much lower level, as both Silent and Still require a spell level boost). And.... he never loses a level due to character death, as he doesn't really die (well... he's saved from dying, oncer per day, anyway...), once past 3rd (2nd, if he takes Soul's Construct Minor, but then he can't act, other than to swap out, if he lands in an inanimate object). That's OK for a 20th level Free Spirit, as True Ressurection is long since available at that point - but veritable immortality for a two-level dip in the class? Umm......

Also I just came up with a new Condition
Character Level cannot exceed ECL of monster being taken over and perhaps even slightly lower ECL than char level (by ECL I think I mean some modifed form of Creature CR)

I think this will help regulating the class

Umm... do you have that backwards? Did you mean the ECL (or modified CR - midless critters always have an LA score of -) cannot exceed Character Level? I'd be more inclined for something like "If the CR or the Hit Dice exceeds the Unbound Soul's Class Level, the Unbound Soul cannot take it over, but still loses the use of the ability for the day" - which would keep it down to mooks - the Unbound Soul can't take over that PseudoDragon until 2nd (2 hit dice) at which point, it's basically a mook (1 cr below the party level) (ditto for the Clay Golem - 11 HD), and that Astral Deva (12 HD, CR 14) can't be taken over until 14th at the earliest (course, it's got a LA of +8, but then, you lose the Spell-like abilities, skills, mental attributes (18/18/20), and (unless you take Soul's Capture....) the Supernatural abilities too (which would include Damage Reduction)... if I'm reading it right, which might be worth most the LA).

Another condition may be having to make additonal DC checks to be able to control bodies which arnt humanoid, perhaps even a daily DC check against losing control of the body the more forgien it is.

Also using special racial abilites could require DC checks or not be able to use them for 24hrs before trying again, thus the more powerful atributes like fly breathweapons can be given higher DC to make using them harder. The DC would decrease the longer the time spent in the body as you ahve time to practice using it.

Acutally that not a bad idea either each atribute takes a DC check an xhrs of passive practice before you can effectivly use it.

A reasonable toning down, but what to use, and what DC's? A skill (makes Skill Focus and max ranks a no-brainer) and the HD/CR of the creature +10? It would have to be a class skill, of course.... perhaps an Int check or a Will save?

Also the 3 DC checks system could probably use some tweaking. I want it so that taking over lesser creatures is easy but higher level creature is harder but still possible.

Also... I notice you don't yet have a BAB or Save progression....

 

[Phasics]

I was considering not having a BAB making u use the monsters BAB's

and possibly only having will saves and borrowing std fort and reflex saves of the creature.

I figure the less ways you can stack abilites onto alreadydecent creatures the less chance of this being overpowered.

As for Soul's construct I see you point erhaps I should split up the functionality of it
so that at atribute rank I minor : you can enter and innaimate object but cannot do anything
it is simply a retreat, one which you will be stuck in if you only have sould swap 1/day
rank II: can communicate with nearby crearures
rank III: can move the object as per a version of telekenis spell and make weak bludgeon attacks
rank IV: can move freely as per levitate spell and psuedo weild weapons like dancing weapons
rank V: can cast spells (or mabe not)

as for the major its tempered by CR ECL vs Lv

Also considering making this like Monk class where you cant take additonal classes with it reason. Other classes invole you perfecting your mind and body to function towards a certain way. swapping bodies all the time you can expect to be able to move as you did in the previsou body.

 

[Phasics]

Other option is to eliminate feats from the build

thus taking 1 level of US prohibits you from gaining feats in any other level, I mean your going to get access to a host of monster abilites I think cutting out all other feats would be a fair trade.

thus no metamagic feats and that would cancel the casting issues from inanimate objects.

Perhpas a US monster casting feat to allow spell use in all monster types to avoid the V S trouble with creatures that cant speak etc.

The Other option is to make Soul's Power for Psionic powers instead of arcane/devine which might make more sense in a way

 

[Jack Simth]

He needs BAB, Fort, and Ref saves of his own - 1/2 BAB and poor saves - as he doesn't get access to all the critter's know-how on how to use that body he just took over - He shouldn't be able to step into one of those Dire Tigers (CR 8, 16 HD) and suddenly equal the Cleric in direct combat ability.

Course, that's just me wanting him to be easier to kill (as it doesn't slow him down nearly as much....) than other classes.

Also - you need to make decisions on what, precisely, is captured from a stolen form under assorted circumstances - Racial Bonus feats? Regular feats? Spell-Like Abilities? Supernatural Abilities? Extraordinary Abilities? Skills? When using Soul's Capture Minor? Major? Neither? After eating the target? When playing the guest with the target? When playing the jailkeeper of the target? After swapping with the target?

But give him the every 3rd level regular feats - at least, those that relate to the mind in some way - Metamagic, Skill Focus, Item Creation, and the like.

Also - any bonus for taking both Major and Minor in the same thing? Both Soul's Power giving a spell progression as a Sorceror, Wizard, or Cleric, for example.....