The flavour of my classes, no mechanics yet, but I would still like ideas!

[Ferret]

I'm changing some of the classes to fit the flavour of a homebrew setting. all thats here are my ideas down on virtual ink.

Classes:

Aspect casters are like clerics, their spells comes from different ascended (think of them as gods) that act as ‘transformers’ for the source (Like the weave). This includes druids, that act like clerics for the Nature ascended. Don’t worry. All aspect casters get different abilities for the aspects they represent. Also what would be wizards are special aspect casters (First ascended is the ‘Magic god’, but doesn’t step-down The Source) so they cast through items, like books, jools, shells, staves etc to avoid injury. No metal armour for any, smallish HD.

Aspect warriors are pretty much like paladins. The nature one gets ranger like abilities, and the Magic one gets bards, they’re the beefier Aspect caster. I want them to be able to cast through armour but I don’t know how to justify it. Larger HD then their aspect caster counterparts.

Sorcerers would now draw spells straight from The Source which is very dangerous, explosions, turning to stone, spell failures: serious bad stuff. They cast spontaneously.

Fighters and rogues remain unchanged as of yet. Barbarians are limited to a race, you can still get green with a PrC though. The monk has ability chains, think normal ranger combat moves, but not just feats.

Other slightly relevant stuff:

You use a spell craft check to cast spells

Races? I’m doing them now if you read then you’ll understand. None are up know as most aren’t done.

Please try to comment on this so I can improve!

 

[mercucio]

Ferret,

You're going to need supply more detail before an analysis can be done.

 

[Ferret]

I don't have detail yet; I'm not asking for ways to make sure it isn't broken or underpowered, yet.

At the moment this is just the skeleton, the flavour of the classes.

 

[Ferret]

I'm not going to be able to write any of the classes any time soon, so I'll put this again to make sure everyone knows at the moment this is just the skeleton, an outline of what they are without the crunchy filling.

 

[Li Shenron]

At the moment this is just the skeleton, the flavour of the classes...

...which is just great!

An implication that comes to my mind is that eventually there will be no distinction between arcane and divine magic, right? Then, what about re-organizing spells into aspect lists instead of class lists? For example, you can have animal spells, cold spells, weather spells, shadow spells... If you are going to make the Sorcerer some kind of trickster who is not granted spells from a higher source but instead "steals" them from the weave (or whatever), you can either let him choose spells from every aspect or - if you think that would be too versatile (since potentially he can learn healing spells e.g.) - give each Sorcerer a choice of a limited number of lists.

About casting in armor. Simply giving them a class feature that lets the aspect warrior cast in armor doesn't appeal me much, because even if it works it doesn't really have an explanation.
I'd rather make feats which decrease (or outright eliminate) the ASF but require armor proficiency, and then give some of them for free to the aspect warriors. The aspect casters would have to spend more feats for that, if they start without armor prof.
For example you could have a feat which decreases by 10% the ASF and can be taken more than once, but works only on the kind of armor for which the character is proficient.

Having feats is better IMHO because it represents something that can be learned by the character. If you instead just make it some sort of class ability, there will be no explanation why aspect warrior can and aspect casters cannot, even if they cast the same spells (and aspect casters are supposedly more experienced casters!).

 

[Ferret]

Ther will be a distinction, arcane is much more dangerous the 'aspect caster' for magic (read wizard) will cast items out of (or through I'm not sure). So they will still cast and forget. I'm not too clear on my ideas, but if I keep it split the clerical magic will have the aspects (or spheres) not many though.

The aspects come from ascended casters who first learned how to use the source.

On the armour side, good idea.

 

[clockworkcrab]

Looks cool. It sounds like the aspects are quite central to the campaign world. Are the other aspects unique and considered equivalent to the 'arcane' and 'nature' aspects or are they all lumped in under the 'divine' aspect? If you lumped them together it would keep things simple and avoid the need for too many new rules.
However, if you keep them seperate you could really put some nice flavour into the campaign. For instance, an aspect of 'Shadow' using all those wacky shadow weave spells from various sources. Or perhaps 'Mind' using psionics rules. You get the idea. More work to plan, but potentially a very cool campaign world.

With regards to the ASF issues with armor, if you're going to use a spellcraft check to cast a spell, you could just apply the armor check penalty the that check. Given the flavour text you've included, the penalties for failing this check when wearing armor could be... unpleasant. If you do this, then your paladins could have training to cast in armor, reducing this penalty and the chance of ugly consequences.

 

[Ferret]

They are unique compared to nature but the magic (not just arcane) sticks out. Theres still some flavour to sort out, I might have them all cast though items.

Only the 'Sorcerer' get the bad results if they fail the check. The others would only burn out a casting item.

 

[Prothall]

I see where you're going with the casting spells with Spellcraft thing, though it should really just be based on caster level, since any caster will max it out. A player in my campaign does something like that, though it is unbalanced, there are some ideas you might want to steal. I'd have to check with him, but one thing he gets is reduced penalties for failure at higher levels (he's currently 13 or 14).

 

[Aaron2]

You use a spell craft check to cast spells

I have a system that uses spellcraft to cast spells but it also give a big bonus (like +20) if you prepare the spell ahead of time (ala normal rules). That way the player decides whether safety or flexibility is more important. I also give a bonus if they read the spell directly from their spellbook as I like that visual. Penalty for failure was 1d4 points of Strength damage per spell level. Also, I had to make the DC equal to X + double the spell level. I found that with just X + spell level, the DC is either too easy for high level characters or too hard for low level ones.


Aaron