Puppet Master

[GamerRay]

I actually just watched the episode where he has his 2nd puppet, and designed my own version of the Iron Maiden.

Basically, it would be a puppet with 1/2 movement speed (if at all). Unlike other puppets, it can "attack" any enemy that is moved into the square it occupies, even with no strings attached. The creature would take dX damage, become immobilized, and take dX damage each turn it is immobilized by the puppet. It would perhaps gain some bonus (negative to enemy's saving throw?) if the puppeteer has strings attached to the Iron Maiden.

 

[Soulstrings33]

I was thinking over the idea of the paragon paths (yes i know, its way too early to jump right into that.) I think one of the paths should focus exclusively of the Puppeteer's ability to use his strings. He doesn't have a favorite puppet because all things are simply tools for his amusement. When not controlling enemies (fallen or otherwise), controlling allies, or toying with inanimates, the puppeteer devotes his time to reaching the pinnacle of his wire's potential. I can see this type of puppeteer using garrote wire trap tactics. Perhaps he sets an intricate trap of empheral wires and waits for the enemy to approach. As soon as they're in place, the wires become substantial, entangling the helpless foe, and with a sheer tug, these razor wires evicerate them.

 

[Soulstrings33]

I like it. Seriously, i think that with the three of us working on this, its going to turn out awesome. When we get this finished, I'll probably only play this class. There's so much that you can do with it.

 

[Soulstrings33]

Truth be told, I've played a puppet master before in 3.5. The DM at the time helped me devise the class using the rogue, the artificer, Kankuro, and a little imagination.It ended up being a puppet master that, at his highest level, could control 5 unique puppets. You were given a number of "puppet building points" (at each level this number increased). We based this progression on the artificers point system for infusions. The options varied greatly from extra hp to hidden weapons. We even had it set up to where you could control different size puppets (small, medium, large). Spending some points, you could install a storage space in the puppet's torso (see where this is going?) If you played a small race, you could hide inside the medium puppet, and then that one could hide in the large puppet. Basically double what Sasori did. Also, as extra defense, at a higher level, the master was granted control over a sentient guardian (Warforged). If you double stored yourself and protected that with the Warforged, you still had 3 unique puppets to fight for you. The 3 different builds you could have were utility (general use, carrying gear, etc), fighter, and assassin (rogue). Once I was completely set up, I was double stored, guarded by a Warforged,had 2 fighters and 1 assassin. So that it made sense being stored, the puppet master had a special type of scrying, which could only be used to see through the vision of his puppets. It was a very fun class to play out.

 

[Soulstrings33]

So far in developing this class, we have essentially come up with two methods.
1) A single-puppet Puppeteer 2) A Multi-puppet Puppeteer

Before breaking that down into striker or controller I'd like to touch on some other options.
1) A combination method where there is a main puppet, but the Puppeteer also uses one-shots to assist the main puppet in its task
2) A multi-puppet build that focuses on a few strong puppets (not sure how many) and the powers for such a build would be dependant on the number of puppets in use. For example: The powers would be called tactics, using combos to take out enemies and if there are more puppets out, then more powerful moves can be used (dailies) It would essentially still be one attack, but all the puppets in use would execute it in one turn (simplicity) It would help explain why a certain tactic could do damage and paralyze, or w/e
For balance, if its a tactic that requires 3 puppets, if you had three but one is destroy before your turn, the power wouldn't be available until you called out another puppet or took time to repair the damaged one.

 

[GamerRay]

In the original build, there was going to be 1 main puppet and several 1 shots. However, too many people had a hard time believing 1 puppet could be so strong. I'm still a fan of the idea, with the 1 puppet being medium sized and the rest being the size of a marionette. However, I'm not opposed to just having several puppets, although the latter becomes problematic down the road when you have 10 or 15 puppets at your disposal, and trying to role-play how you can carry so many.

 

[Soulstrings33]

How about this: You can have several pupppets, but with a catch. There is one main puppet always at your disposal, but the rest are (of the same size or bigger/smaller) summonable for 1-3 rounds depending on the nature of the encounter or daily and then, unless its an exploding puppet, it is called back and preparation must be made to resummon later. Like a tactic where you team up your main puppet with two others. One will be the trap while the other two steer the enemy towards it. Upon getting too close, wires spring out of the trap puppet to ensnare the foe. The puppet helping the main one is unsummoned and the main puppet goes in to strike. After stabbing or w/e that puppet gets out of the way as the trap puppet explodes with the enemy still inside.

 

[Soulstrings33]

And as far as carrying so many puppets, you could take the summon scroll concept from naruto, or have something like a puppet house that stores them all. Any puppet can be summoned from this extra planar area. It could also explain why the puppeteer is able to go long periods of time in a traveling party without having to spend an ungodly amount of money repairing the puppets. His tools would come from the puppet house.

 

[Soulstrings33]

While looking over all the things that you have compiled, I thought of something. As far as making the puppeteer become more like its puppet, what if the puppeteer could pull a magic jar-like move and enter the body of his puppet. From there, he could craft himself a new puppet body with as many hidden weapons, etc. as his original puppet. I would think that since he would be using this body, that it would be more durable and allow the puppeteer to take part in actually damaging enemies himself. Each time the body gets too messed up, he can either repair it or make a new one. Just repairing could be done during an extended rest, but crafting a new body would require extra time.Also, I think that the magic jar-like ability should be limited to being able to jump into puppet bodies. Let me know what you think.

 

[Soulstrings33]

Hey,
Any word on new developments? Its been pretty quiet on this forum except for me and Gamer Ray on occassion. I was trying to find a template to use for compiling all the info, so I got the pdf. of the phb and used one of the class pages. When I dragged it into illustrator, I had a not so pleasant surprise. I knew that my font library more than likely didnt have the fonts, but that wasn't the problem. Aparently WOTC went in and made each line of text a seperate item!...ugh So the process of making this thing look as official as possible is a huge task...a little suffering for greatness. I've taken the Power Infused blade as one of the At-Wills, still uncertain of what I want for a second striking ability, with the clipping, and a wire manipulation riposte as the two control At-Wills. I've decided that I want this thing to go along this line:

Puppeteer– deadly controller

Main Puppet– Striker

Encounter/Daily Puppets–Status Ailment, Control, Distraction

Class Powers

• Scrying–Limited to seeing through puppets eyes (scouts and main puppet)
  
• Natural Ventriloquism–(Like the wizard ability) throws voice at will
  
• Scout Puppets-(Thanks to Kisanji for this one) these marrionettes have no martial abilities and serve only has scouts and spies for the Puppeteer. The Puppeteer may use scrying to see through the scout's eyes.
  
• Ephemeral Strings: Attach Strings Puppeteer feature. While this one is essentially used to attach to the Main, Enc, and Daily Puppets, it is also used to pick up, move, or otherwise manipulate objects around the Puppeteer.
  
• Ephemeral Strings: Fade In Fade Out
  Your strings turn from illusory to substantial, allowing you to use "String" abilities. You may revert your strings to being illusory as a free action. At the end of the String ability's effect, the strings return to being illusory automatically.