Soulborn Reborn

[Rampant]

It would really help if you could make a chart of the class abilities by level.

Using the original soulborn as the base line what would you like to increase or decrease, reliance on incarnum feats, reliance on conventional meldshaping, reliance on class features, and reliance on martial class outline (high hd, perfect base attack bonus, weapon proficiencies).

Because right now my advice is to prune the class back to it's basic skeleton and then add each ability one at a time.

 

[emoplato]

It would really help if you could make a chart of the class abilities by level.

Using the original soulborn as the base line what would you like to increase or decrease, reliance on incarnum feats, reliance on conventional meldshaping, reliance on class features, and reliance on martial class outline (high hd, perfect base attack bonus, weapon proficiencies).

Because right now my advice is to prune the class back to it's basic skeleton and then add each ability one at a time.

Okay I removed the attribute increases. I kept the abilities for references sake if I want to theme another ability after it, but I will be keeping the bonus skills. The way I see it is I want the soulmelds/binds to give combat feat/tactical like options while the feats and essentia abilities which the Soulborn class increases helps give it the ability to consistently deliver it. I think this is the best way to go about it while still being balanced with the other two. What kind of essentia based abilities you think it should have?
I was thinking about an essentia over investment capability in which they would declare one soulmeld or essentia based ability to have their capacity increased like up 4 or 5 at level 20 as well as be able to invest that essentia in there for 3+con rounds, 5 times a day instead of the original expand essentia and form-displacement. They wouldn't be able to have multiple uses on and invested essentia goes back to other recepticles when over but would that infringe on other classes?

 

[emoplato]

Anyone else?

 

[Rampant]

Level
1 Smite 1/day, Champion Aspect
2
3 Bonus Incarnum feat
4 Smite 2/day
5
6 Bonus Incarnum feat
7
8 Smite 3/day
9 Bonus Incarnum feat
10
11
12 Bonus Incarnum feat, Smite 4/day
13
14
15 Bonus Incarnum feat
16 Smite 5/day
17
18 Bonus Incarnum feat
19
20 Smite 6/day

Level Essentia
1 1
2 2
3 2
4 3
5 4
6 4
7 5
8 6
9 6
10 7
11 8
12 8
13 9
14 10
15 10
16 11
17 12
18 12
19 13
20 14

Level Soulmelds Shaped Chakra Binds
1 2
2 2
3 3
4 3
5 3
6 4
7 4
8 4
9 5
10 5
11 5
12 6
13 6
14 6
15 7
16 7
17 7
18 8
19 8
20 8

Smite (su): Befor emaking an attack roll you my designate an attack to be a smite attack. A smite attack deals 1d10+1/2 your HD extra damage, over comes damage reduction as if it was made with a magic weapon, and adds your _____ modifier to the attack roll. You may use this ability once per day at level 1, twice per day at level 4, and one extra time per day fo every four class levels after 4th.


Champion Aspect: While the legends of ages past come in all forms you have chosen a particularly archetype to empower you. Choose one of the following options:

Quick Hero: You may shape the Quicksilver Legend meld.

Mighty Hero: You my shape the Powerful Legend meld.

Enduring Hero: You may shape the Unbreakable Legend meld.


Quicksilver Legend
Fiddly soulmeld stuff

You may act in a surprise round even if you are surprised. If you would normally act in the surprise round you may take a full rounds worth of actions.

Essentia: For each point of essentia invested in this meld you get a +2 insight bonus to initiative, and a +1 insight bonus to reflex saves.


Powerful Legend
Fiddly soulmeld stuff

You add your full strength modifier to damage to attacks made with off-hand weapons instead of one half your strength modifier. When you wield a two handed+ weapon you add your strength modifier times the number of hands used to wield the weapon instead of your strength modifier plus 1/2 times your strength modifier for each hand after the first (so a two handed weapon would get 2 ties your strength modifier to damage instead of one and a half times your strength modifier).

Essentia: For each point of essentia invested in this meld you get a +2 insight bonus to damage on a critical hit, and a +1 insight bonus to will saves.


Unbreakable Legend
Fiddly Soulmeld stuff

Once per round when you would take damage you can choose to halve the damage you take, or you may reduce a critical hit or sneak attack made against you to a regular attack.

Essentia: For each point of essentia invested in this meld you gain a +1 insight bonus on Fortitude saves, and fast healing equal to one half the invested essentia, this fast healing does not function if you have more than 1/2 your maximum HP.



Here's My suggested start point, I'm not sure how you wanna arrange the chakra binds so I'm not sure how many of those to allow at once.

How do i set up a nice table?

 

[emoplato]

Level
1 Smite 1/day, Champion Aspect
2
3 Bonus Incarnum feat
4 Smite 2/day
5
6 Bonus Incarnum feat
7
8 Smite 3/day
9 Bonus Incarnum feat
10
11
12 Bonus Incarnum feat, Smite 4/day
13
14
15 Bonus Incarnum feat
16 Smite 5/day
17
18 Bonus Incarnum feat
19
20 Smite 6/day

Level Essentia
1 1
2 2
3 2
4 3
5 4
6 4
7 5
8 6
9 6
10 7
11 8
12 8
13 9
14 10
15 10
16 11
17 12
18 12
19 13
20 14

Level Soulmelds Shaped Chakra Binds
1 2
2 2
3 3
4 3
5 3
6 4
7 4
8 4
9 5
10 5
11 5
12 6
13 6
14 6
15 7
16 7
17 7
18 8
19 8
20 8

Smite (su): Befor emaking an attack roll you my designate an attack to be a smite attack. A smite attack deals 1d10+1/2 your HD extra damage, over comes damage reduction as if it was made with a magic weapon, and adds your _____ modifier to the attack roll. You may use this ability once per day at level 1, twice per day at level 4, and one extra time per day fo every four class levels after 4th.


Champion Aspect: While the legends of ages past come in all forms you have chosen a particularly archetype to empower you. Choose one of the following options:

Quick Hero: You may shape the Quicksilver Legend meld.

Mighty Hero: You my shape the Powerful Legend meld.

Enduring Hero: You may shape the Unbreakable Legend meld.


Quicksilver Legend
Fiddly soulmeld stuff

You may act in a surprise round even if you are surprised. If you would normally act in the surprise round you may take a full rounds worth of actions.

Essentia: For each point of essentia invested in this meld you get a +2 insight bonus to initiative, and a +1 insight bonus to reflex saves.


Powerful Legend
Fiddly soulmeld stuff

You add your full strength modifier to damage to attacks made with off-hand weapons instead of one half your strength modifier. When you wield a two handed+ weapon you add your strength modifier times the number of hands used to wield the weapon instead of your strength modifier plus 1/2 times your strength modifier for each hand after the first (so a two handed weapon would get 2 ties your strength modifier to damage instead of one and a half times your strength modifier).

Essentia: For each point of essentia invested in this meld you get a +2 insight bonus to damage on a critical hit, and a +1 insight bonus to will saves.


Unbreakable Legend
Fiddly Soulmeld stuff

Once per round when you would take damage you can choose to halve the damage you take, or you may reduce a critical hit or sneak attack made against you to a regular attack.

Essentia: For each point of essentia invested in this meld you gain a +1 insight bonus on Fortitude saves, and fast healing equal to one half the invested essentia, this fast healing does not function if you have more than 1/2 your maximum HP.



Here's My suggested start point, I'm not sure how you wanna arrange the chakra binds so I'm not sure how many of those to allow at once.

How do i set up a nice table?

Well binds don't equal soulmelds even the Incarnate only gets up to 5. It sure is an easy start but I can't help but feel that it is similar to a prestige class in that it says this is your essentia based ability. I personally think, like the other base classes, that it should be more mechanically based(like mine) so it has the initial ground work to enhance incarnum capability if they want to go somewhere else. It also goes back to where the other classes could rob its key aspect and have more essentia to work with. The smite also just seems thematically wrong. I think you are right in getting more bonus feats and trade out the scaling class paradigm attribute stuff, but I really think we need mechanical differences to give the Soulborn an edge over the other two.
You also didn't give an opinion on that essentia over investment versus what I had before.

 

[Rampant]

I know binds don't equal melds I just left binds blank because I'm not sure how many chakra to open.

My reasoning for smite is that it gives them a class feature that synchs up with an incarnum feat. Sneak attack, rage, psychic strike, or whatever would work just as well. ideally we could give the class a minor version of all of them just to ... Ok what if instead of smite you get a feature based on your choice of hero archetype? skirmish or something for quick, smite for mighty, and something akin to the dwarven defender ability for enduring?

Honestly I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say the classes should be more mechanically based, or incarnate and totemist might steal key aspects of this class. I mean sure they could spend a feat to learn the unique soulmelds I suggested but anyone can do the same to learn their unique soulmelds as well.

Ok for form displacement i'd suggest instead of allowing them to re-arrange the essentia as a swift action off the bat, that you gradually step down the time needed, 1hr, 10 min, 1 min, full round, move, standard, then swift.

Incarnum perfection requires a duration limit on the essentia charge.

as for your over investment feature I think it's a little much I'd suggest holding off on that until you get the archetype features in place, or if you wanna work on it now consider installing it as a gradual feature so at level two you can add +1 essentia more than you normally could to a meld for some number of rounds, and then increase the amount as you level.

 

[emoplato]

I know binds don't equal melds I just left binds blank because I'm not sure how many chakra to open.

My reasoning for smite is that it gives them a class feature that synchs up with an incarnum feat. Sneak attack, rage, psychic strike, or whatever would work just as well. ideally we could give the class a minor version of all of them just to ... Ok what if instead of smite you get a feature based on your choice of hero archetype? skirmish or something for quick, smite for mighty, and something akin to the dwarven defender ability for enduring?

Honestly I'm not sure what you're talking about when you say the classes should be more mechanically based, or incarnate and totemist might steal key aspects of this class. I mean sure they could spend a feat to learn the unique soulmelds I suggested but anyone can do the same to learn their unique soulmelds as well.

Ok for form displacement i'd suggest instead of allowing them to re-arrange the essentia as a swift action off the bat, that you gradually step down the time needed, 1hr, 10 min, 1 min, full round, move, standard, then swift.

Incarnum perfection requires a duration limit on the essentia charge.

as for your over investment feature I think it's a little much I'd suggest holding off on that until you get the archetype features in place, or if you wanna work on it now consider installing it as a gradual feature so at level two you can add +1 essentia more than you normally could to a meld for some number of rounds, and then increase the amount as you level.

What I mean as what you have right now as it is considered a meld an incarnate could take one level dip in it and be able to stack in 7 essentia at high levels versus the Soulborn's 5 without hurting its progression much at all.
Well if you look back on what I said the over investment ability is temporary and would be done instead of the original increased essentia capacity and form displacement. Of course it would be gradual I was just suggesting a maximum. Ah, well its suppose to done for like the others 3+x mod.

 

[Rampant]

Well if we use the skirmish/rage/smite/whatever thing we can ditch the unique meld and use that instead.

 

[emoplato]

Well if we use the skirmish/rage/smite/whatever thing we can ditch the unique meld and use that instead.

Okay, but seriously which mechanic do you like better. A smaller permanent increase in investment to incarnum feats and based abilities that aren't soulmelds and the form displacement(which only can be used 3 or 4 times), or a stronger, temporary increase that can be placed on any essentia based ability or meld in which allows any ability chosen to be invested in for 3+con rounds 5 or 6 uses a day but essentia goes back to your pool at the end of duration?
Also I mentioned meld power scaling based upon if they chose as their paradigm attribute. Now I am not going to those class powers but I think it is really important that it has something like in its melds. For example, I do like the mauling gauntlets now an Incarnate could take this and invest two more essentia in it giving him +4 more on strength checks and 4 more points of damage if he binds it to his hands. However I have it so a might oriented Soulborn would increase the damage size category up 2 sizes(level 5 and 15). Alone most of the time the Incarnate will do more damage but add superior unarmed strike the 2d6 becomes 4d6 making the Soulborn superior in damage. Of course those would be respectively for each meld, but I think you see my point.

 

[Rampant]

Well honestly the totemist and the incarnate already have the constant capacity boost thing so if you wanna keep being different from them I'd advise the more dramatic temp boost.

The constant capacity increase for feats on the other hand would be simpler, it's a trade off and your decision.

As for the meld-attribute matching thing, i'd drop it. If you have an idea for a meld, or notice a lack of melds for a certain body slot that corresponds to chakras you're gonna open, make a new meld. Otherwise give them access to the whole class list. (in fact what you might wanna consider is going back through the master list and adding melds that correspond to potential future builds like inspiring, mystic/aware, and cunning [cha, wis, and int respectively]) Let the class features and feat choice focus the build. I mean even the mighty hercules had to show speed once in a while.