Soulreaver (new class)

[Nebuchadnezzar]

The soulreaver is a new class in my campaign-world, and I need some feedback (especially on balance issues). Please forgive possible misspellings, as English is not my first language.

First a little background:

My campaign-world used to a generic campaign-world, ruled by large theocratic empires. One day however, for reasons unknown,
all communication with the gods was barred. And every attempt
to summon creatures into the world, or teleport outside the plane
through the use of planeshift (and similar) spells, failed. Also, souls could not leave the world. When a creature died, its soul
drifts across the world, invisible, but still tangible in the sense of
dread when one is nearby. Things get worse, as a few souls also
return to their body (which by this time is a corpse), and as a result undead abominations walk the land.

Chaos followed. Huge empires crumbled as their priest-kings did not receive spells, and as such lost their divine right to rule. The
dwarves sealed the gates to their underground fortresses, and
to this day their fate is unknown. The elves were hardest hit. Their relationship to their deities were of paramount importance
to elven society. Nearly every elf across the world killed themselves when the gods abandoned them. Parents slew their
children and themselves. The haflings were long a servitude race
to the human empires, and used the chaos to break free of slavery. A few human towns were seized by haflings, whom still
struggle to protect their new settlements from raiders, and
marauding undead.

The greatest city in what used to be the greatest empire in the world is abandoned, except for the undead priest-king whom still sits on his throne tormented with his spiritual emptiness. He spends his eternal unlife either in deep prayer, or feverish cries of
sorrow. His whispers of prayer and cries of redemption echo around the desolate, grey streets.

A few months later someone once again managed to manifest
divine magic. They claimed the gods had returned and favoured
them. This was a new sort of magic, one that used the divine
essence that was souls as fuel. And there were plenty of souls
in the world, as they were unable to accomplish their journey
to the afterlife. These new wielders of divine magic were called
soulreavers.

Casting divine magic for the soulreavers is a horrible thing. They
use drifting souls as expendable fuel, annihilating the souls in the process. The horrible cries of dying souls attack the caster's mind,
and just before spellcasting (as a free action) he must make an
concentration check at DC 10 + spell-level. Failure means the
caster looses concentration and the spell. The souls are thus not
destroyed. Success means that the essence of souls are gathered
in the caster's hands, appearing like a hellish spectrum of colours.
The spell is cast "normally". Soulreavers memorize spells like wizards do, but receive access to the entire spell-list (clerical
spell-list, that is).

Hit Die: D8

Fort Save: Good
Ref Save: Poor
Will Save Good

Base Attack Bonus: As cleric
Spell casting: As cleric, except no domain spells.
Class Skills: As cleric.

Armour and weapon proficiency: As cleric.

Soulreavers spontaneous cast inflict spells.

Soulreavers cannot cast spells of their opposite alignment (just like clerics).


1st level: Rebuke Undead, Soul Reaping.
2nd+: no other special abilities.

Soul Reaping: By consuming an extraordinary amount of souls, the soulreaver can cast a spell enhanced with a metamagic feat at no higher level. However, the strain of soul reaping is tremendous, and what would have been the extra level is added to the concentration check to cast the spell. If the check fails it still counts as an usage of this ability. Usable 1 + charisma modifier.

I intend to carefully examine metamagic feats allowed in the campaign.

The feat "soulweaver" is available to all soulreavers. With this
feat the soulreaver can draw upon his own soul, instead of destroying other souls. Thus there is no Concentration check,
but they instead suffer 1 point of subdual damage per spell-level
for each spell cast. For example, the casting of Bull's Strength
deals two points of subdual damage to the caster. Also, they
receive turn undead instead of rebuke undead, and can spontaneous cast cure spells instead of inflict spells.

These are just preliminary ideas, but are there any opinions or thoughts?

 

[DreamChaser]

this is a very interesting idea. just a few comments.

1) If you want the Concentration check to be more than just an extra die roll, you need to raise the DC. If you figure that any soulreaver would automatically max out Concentration (maybe even w/ Skill Focus) and could have a high Con too, a soulreaver could easily start w/ a +10 skill modifier in Concentration. This means no chance of failing with any level of spell (barring a natural "1"). I think that 13 + (2 x spell level) or 15 + (2 x spell level) would work well. Then a 17th level soulreaver with a Concentration of +25 (at least) would fail on a roll of 7 or less.

2) You really work up how dire the world is and how dark this class is but then you make a single feat able to undo that. Soulweavers get off cheap; each spell destroys a soul for a reaver but only does a bit of sudual damage for a weaver? This doesn't seem like a fair trade. Either reavers are horribly inefficient or weavers are miraculously efficient.

Here's a thought.
Make soul reavers gather souls to use, perhaps in a focus. They then slowly squeeze out the energy of the soul to power their spells. Each soul can power 1d20+20 spells levels before it is destroyed. Casting a spell requires a concentration check due to to the struggles of the imprisoned soul.

On the other hand, a soul weaver learns to place his own essence into the focus rather than using other souls. He takes subdual damage when he energizes the focus and must make a Concentration check to keep the parts of his soul from attempting to rejoin the whole. The negative side is that the soulweaver ages at twice the normal rate and often dies painfully due to his cannibalism.

3) If you are going to make them have spell casting checks, you should give them more spells per day (assuming of course failing uses up a spell slot), and maybe some bonus feats as they advance.

High level soulreavers might even learn to pull parts of the soul from living creatures to power their focus and damage the target.

Hope this helps.

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Thank you for the ideas and suggestions. Some points though:

I do use the "natural 1" rule, and it was part of the balancing
process for the Concentration check. You suggested either 13 +
(2 x spell level), or 15 + (2 x spell level) as the DC for the check,
pointing out that a soulreaver could easily have a 10+ modifier
in Concentration. I am going to use a 32 point-buy in the campaign, and the soulreaver is dependent on three stats:
Wisdom for spells, Charisma for special abilities, and Constitution
for Concentration check (and in the weaver's case: more hit points). If the soulreaver chooses to place an 18 in Con, then he
neglects other important stats. Besides, with a 15 + (2 x spell
level), a 1st level soulreaver with a 14 Con, maxed out Concentration check, and the Skill Focus (Concentration) would
need an 8 or more simply to cast the spell. Too large a penalty
for my taste. For the other option you present the same required
roll would be 6 or more. Still too high for a soulreaver who has
chosen Skill Focus in addition to maxing out Concentration.

The Soulweaver feat is extremely rare. It is a quality few could
ever manifest, and fewer still choose to manifest. It is a dark world, as you mentioned, where survival is more important than
heroic deeds. Destruction of souls is a cruel act, but does not directly harm the soulreaver. In the case of soulweavers however,
they are hurt by casting spells. There are in other words far more
soulreavers than soulweavers (even though reavers are rare).

I really like the focus idea. However, I can not see how I could
implement this idea in the spellcasting process. Would the reaver
not need to rest or memorize spells? What about spells per day?
Is the focus simply another restriction on the reaver's spellcasting,
as he needs the proper amount of energy left in the focus to even
cast spells he has memorized? This in addition to the Concentration check?

The thought of how high-level soulreavers can pull parts of the souls from living creatures to fuel their spells REALLY makes me
excited. Extremely cool.

 

[DreamChaser]

I understand what you're saying about the point buy system...you do have more control over the character stats, but I think that if you are going to make a roll for something, it should only be when there is a reasonable chance of failure, otherwise it doesn't really add much to the game except an extra die roll. If there is so little chance of failure, I'd ditch the roll and choose another penalty (perhaps bleed over from the souls causing a chance of insanity.

In terms of the rarity of the Soulweaver feat, I don't think that is really a balancing factor. Are their any prereqs? How is it rare?

In terms of spell preparation: I think that it could work like this.

The soulreaver prepares her spells each day by drawing in the necessary soul-energy and setting it into her focus with the spell. The nature of the energy allows the conversion of any spell into negative energy to spontaneously cast inflict spells. Each day when the soulreaver prepares spells, she must make a Will save (or Concentration check) against a difficulty equal to 10 + the highest level spell she can cast. If she succeeds, nothing unusual happens. If she fails, she suffers a minor penalty (-1 to Will saves, for example) due to the disruptive influence of the personality of the soul she absorbed. The penalty could increase as higher level spells are gained.

When a soulreaver casts a spell, she merely releases the stored energy from the focus. No roll needs to be made (unless she is attacked). The spell takes form normally. She can try to use a metamagic feat on the spell as she casts it by summoning more soul energy. This requires another roll just as though she were preparing spells to keep from absorbing a part of the soul.

This system would make it possible for there to be a prestige class of soulreavers who intentionally draw in the memories and experiences of the souls they gather, hoping to gain greater powers but going slowly insane in the process.

Hope some of this is helpful; they are just off the top of my head thoughts.

 

[Fade]

Soulweave some spells, take subdual damage. Soulweave a CLW, take 1 point of damage and heal 1d8+5. Even better, you can similtaneously heal battle damage and subdual damage.