Building Outlandish DnD Classes (3.5e)

[President Television]

Alright. I've recently begun preparing to DM for my friends, and as I went over the contents of the DM's Guide, I could not help thinking that it could be great fun to be able to play, say, a mad wizard who specializes in combining magic with science. Or a nerd empathically bound with a shapeshifting magical weapon, empowered by a knowledge of engineering. Or a magic-user with spells bound directly into one's body, such that spells are literally secreted from the glands and digestive system.

Currently, due to a friend's request for a kickass living motorcycle mount, I'm working on the second of those classes. What I'm having trouble with is the weapon itself. I'm treating it roughly like a familiar, except that the class depends entirely on it. I was planning on having a spell-list-like system in place for its forms, heavily restricting its size and technical complexity at first, with larger and more complicated forms becoming accessible as it levels up. Unfortunately, it seems that many of the weapons as described in the Player's Handbook are of similar size and complexity, meaning that they'd theoretically be available very early on, which would be somewhat overpowered. Of course, I could devise a tech tree system, with each technology available requiring prerequisites. Now the problem remains of designing an entire repertoire of technologies and weapons available to a shapeshifting magic weapon. I want it to be fun and distinctive from the other classes without making it overpowered and Mary Sue-ish, but can you blame me for being sorely tempted to make mecha a distinct level 20 possibility for this class? Hell, would an Iron Man suit be overpowered at that level? Where should I draw the line?

[Don Coyote]

Make it based on mass/size and weapon proficiency. Do you have a copy of Unearthed Arcana? There is a prestige class that has some similar concepts to that, there is also something called an item familiar in it. Might be a good place to kitbash ideas from. 

You might also want to check out http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_Chaos.



As for overpowered-ness. No PC is ever overpowered if all PCs feel they have a similar level of power. Note feel. As long as no one has an issue with it don't worry about it. If other PCs end up feeling underpowered, you can always just ramp up their power and the power of the foes they face.

[Cain]

If a PC is overpowered, you just drop the Tarrasque and several demi-liches into the mix anyway....

[President Television]

Make it based on mass/size and weapon proficiency. Do you have a copy of Unearthed Arcana? There is a prestige class that has some similar concepts to that, there is also something called an item familiar in it. Might be a good place to kitbash ideas from.

Sadly, I don't have a copy. I know someone who does, but I'm not on good terms with someone who lives in the same house as them, so I try to avoid going over there. It's a pretty lame excuse, I know.

You might also want to check out http://www.montecook.com/cgi-bin/page.cgi?mpress_Chaos.



As for overpowered-ness. No PC is ever overpowered if all PCs feel they have a similar level of power. Note feel. As long as no one has an issue with it don't worry about it. If other PCs end up feeling underpowered, you can always just ramp up their power and the power of the foes they face.

Yeah, I figured that might be the case. After all, there's got to be a reason that people play Exalted.

[Cramulus]

Alright. I've recently begun preparing to DM for my friends, and as I went over the contents of the DM's Guide, I could not help thinking that it could be great fun to be able to play, say, a mad wizard who specializes in combining magic with science. Or a nerd empathically bound with a shapeshifting magical weapon, empowered by a knowledge of engineering. Or a magic-user with spells bound directly into one's body, such that spells are literally secreted from the glands and digestive system.

Currently, due to a friend's request for a kickass living motorcycle mount, I'm working on the second of those classes. What I'm having trouble with is the weapon itself. I'm treating it roughly like a familiar, except that the class depends entirely on it. I was planning on having a spell-list-like system in place for its forms, heavily restricting its size and technical complexity at first, with larger and more complicated forms becoming accessible as it levels up. Unfortunately, it seems that many of the weapons as described in the Player's Handbook are of similar size and complexity, meaning that they'd theoretically be available very early on, which would be somewhat overpowered. Of course, I could devise a tech tree system, with each technology available requiring prerequisites. Now the problem remains of designing an entire repertoire of technologies and weapons available to a shapeshifting magic weapon. I want it to be fun and distinctive from the other classes without making it overpowered and Mary Sue-ish, but can you blame me for being sorely tempted to make mecha a distinct level 20 possibility for this class? Hell, would an Iron Man suit be overpowered at that level? Where should I draw the line?

Perhaps the shapeshifting could be based off the Summon Monster spells? They already provide a level-scaled list of monsters that a PC could control in a battle. You can always alter the physical appearance of them to your campaign's flavor -- maybe instead of summoning a giant centipede, it's the weapon transforming into some kind of mechapede.  You could even replace certain monsters on the list with other utility options. For example, if you don't think the weapon should be able to turn into a giant squid, maybe it turns into a motorcycle (use the rules for a war horse).

If you're doing character class design, the weapon's abilities can be built into character progression in the form of of spell like abilities. I'd start with the Fighter or Ranger class and trade out the bonus feats and other class features for level appropriate Summon Monster variants.

[Don Coyote]

Too bad none of the really cool stuff from UA is in the SRD.

Well in Exalted you are only overpowered when compared to singular average mortals, whom you are not supposed to be actively fighting


Also, Cram is a genius.

[President Television]

Perhaps the shapeshifting could be based off the Summon Monster spells? They already provide a level-scaled list of monsters that a PC could control in a battle. You can always alter the physical appearance of them to your campaign's flavor -- maybe instead of summoning a giant centipede, it's the weapon transforming into some kind of mechapede.  You could even replace certain monsters on the list with other utility options. For example, if you don't think the weapon should be able to turn into a giant squid, maybe it turns into a motorcycle (use the rules for a war horse).

If you're doing character class design, the weapon's abilities can be built into character progression in the form of of spell like abilities. I'd start with the Fighter or Ranger class and trade out the bonus feats and other class features for level appropriate Summon Monster variants.

This actually sounds like a good idea. At this point it's sounding more like a Mons type thing than an empathic transforming armor thing, but I could probably make monsters a branch of the tech tree, to add a bit of variety in terms of the player's options. Which is good, because I was wondering what kinds of forms I was going to include outside of your standard weapons, vehicles, and armor.
To be honest, I was already thinking of including something along the lines of an animalistic "standard form" for ease of transport, but at the time I was basing its forms on what kind of engineering the player character could be expected to understand at the time. At this point, I think this is an acceptable break from reality(or fantasy, I suppose), though. As long as the player character knows the design of the framework and understands the placement of the muscle analogues(cables, hydraulics, etc.), it should be fine. You see, my idea was that the item's (Bend is my working name for it) main limitation was that it had to hold a definite shape at all times, and otherwise collapsed into a useless puddle of liquid metal(think molten solder, only not necessarily hot).
Yeah, this'll be a lot more fun than simply making the Bend a living inventory.
Also, it makes something like this a lot more plausible, as well as the possibility of having a flying motocross jouster.

Also, I found UA: http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/UA:Variant_Rules

Also, yes, Cram is a genius.

[eighteen buddha strike]

Too bad none of the really cool stuff from UA is in the SRD.

Well in Exalted you are only overpowered when compared to singular average mortals, whom you are not supposed to be actively fighting


Also, Cram is a genius.

Exalted is great for ridiculous shit like that. I remember a discussion on RPG.net where somebody figured out, using the exalted rules, that flight was possible by the means of parrying the earth when you were falling.

I never really got into that game, though, just because .... SOO MUCH DICE.

Oh, and for the purpose of actually contributing something relatively on-topic... I've found that given the sheer volume of 3.5's library most things are pretty easy to do given enough time and research. An enchanted motorcycle mount? Sounds like a simple combination of animated object and improved familiar... not sure how you'd go about making the motorcycle itself, maybe Eberron would be a good way to go, or you could use the Gnome Artificer prestige class from Magic of Faerun.

I made a character that was essentially a template of the doctor. Basically he started with a couple levels of bard (perform: oratory), I gave him the Survivor prestige class from Savage species, after that I think I went Chameleon until I could split his levels between Chameleon and Exemplar. The result was a character with wicked good saves, a little bit of natural armor, knowledge skills out the ass (this was the focus of his exemplar levels) and the ability to emulate abilities from every single class of the game. A true jack of all trades.

For the TARDIS

1. Daerns Instant Fortress
2. Cube of Force
3. Cube of Frost Resistance
4. Cube of Planes
5. Crystal Ball... one of the nice ones.

Voila.

...

Reminds me that I should get back to work on my campaign setting. The idea is a giant macro-scale type world, set on a dyson-sphere which encapsulates a star in a binary system.

[Doktor Howl]

Still think you guys ought to look at pathfinder.

[Requia ☣]

Still think you guys ought to look at pathfinder.

This is worth repeating.

[eighteen buddha strike]

My group has been giving some thought to switching to Pathfinder, its a bit up in the air right now though. Well, basically the way it works with our group is that we alternate DM's on a pretty regular basis, somebody will run a game for a while (sometimes three months, sometimes a year or two) and then we'll trade off every now and then as things get old, or peoples schedules change. One regular DM has his own setting that he's put a vast amount of work into over the years, and he's looking to start using a system that he'll be able to market it for (I myself am skeptical of his chances of selling the setting, not because of the setting itself, but just because I cant picture that being an easy market to break into.) Anyway, he's likely to switch us over to running 4th edition.

Another player in our group is running an epic-level 3.5 game soon, which will be fun, since we have nearly the entire library for it.

Right now a buddy of mine is running a whaling campaign, or trying to, which is largely based on MOBY DICK and also some of his historical nerddom... I say trying to because he's a first time GM, the players have completely hijacked the game, and he's using D20 Modern which is just AWFUL.

We currently have a side-game as well, which is a dragon campaign played in the primordial version of my buddies setting. That's going pretty well, but its a much different style of play considering that the two players (this one is a smaller group, we're kind of testing the concept out) are at odds with one other.  Naturally, Dragons aren't really the type to form "parties", more the type to well... amass hoards, manipulate lesser creatures, and plot/scheme. At least, thats what I'm trying to do with my Green Dragon.  Anyway, the game has a lot more player authorship than most groups are comfortable with.

I myself just picked up Burning Wheel, and I'm looking forward to running that soon myself. Honestly, I was planning on doing kind of an Ad-Hoc system review of it for you guys, as its a fantastic system, BUT its been years since I've really looked at it and I was going to wait until I do a few test-plays of it before I try and sell you guys on it.

Also in line is a monk game I'm planning on running which is going to be derivative of the old chinese opera flicks. Characters would pick a starting class of their own choice, but would have to (at least) alternate the levels they take with levels of Monk. Their are limitations on the concept, of course, characters will have to find a "teacher" in the temple if they wish to progress in anything besides Monk. (ala the 3 holy fools, or the Cook from Ninja Checkmate) The idea was to have some fun with cross-classing monks, but also to force characters into a very rigid party cohesiveness right from the bat.

Anyway, the point of all this rambling is that our group has a lot on our plate right now... but I am trying to sell our regular DM on pathfinder and he seems interested. It wouldnt be a huge switch for us, I imagine the conversions would be easier (as opposed to converting from 3.5 to 4th, which really just seems kind of impossible). I'm curious, though, as to whether or not its possible to use a lot of the old 3.5 material in a pathfinder game? Can it be done, or is it just too unfeasable?

[Cainad (dec.)]

Gawd, sooo many different things to try out. And these days it's hell on earth getting even four of us together on a weekend.

We barely managed to pull together a Demon Hunters game (a hilarious game based on a hilariously bad pair of movies by the same guys who made "The Gamers") for the first time last week, and that was my first GMing experience in a while... AND I'm looking at pulling together an Arcana Evolved campaign (one of Monte Cook's big homebrew projects), as well as possibly a regular 3.5e campaign for some n00bs.

All of this, and there's at least three separate groups in the middle of their campaigns in our regular DM's personal setting.

[Telarus]

Wow, goldmine thread.

My current RPG fixations are: I'm currently coding a character sheet and game framework in MapTool (virtual tabletop map / tokens, etc). I'm coding up the Earthdawn 3rd Edition rules in order to run the classic gygaxian adventure T-1 The Village of Hommlett with the ED system. (I'm changing the backstory, and turning the pagan/church tension in the village into tension between a Living Legend Cult[keeping all the church/knight motifs] and villagers aligned with a local Faerie Court).

Once I have a successful playtest for for my IRL game (player's map will be a big LCD TV), I'm probably going to want to run a few more playtests online.

See my "MapTool shenanigans" thread for pics of the program, and I'll put out the call for an online dungeoncrawl in a while.

Also, the MapTool folks have already coded up a couple of different Pathfinder 'frameworks'. Frameworks really turn Maptool into a focused game-specific program.