Post/Author/DateTime	Post
feartheinvinceblehamster 10-22-05, 08:13 PM	The StaffLord Core Class http://dark.darkemud.com/playerpic/pics/Wizard.jpg The StaffLord Is an olde-style wizard. He casts a limited number of spells using a personalized staff. Saves: good will BAB: poor HD: D4 Prestige Class Note: for "The Staff": a staffcaster has a staff(hence the name) and uses it for most purposes. The Staff is always a quarterstaff, though it's form varies, depending on personality. if you ever go to a staffcaster guild you will see all kinds of staffs, from a tall adamantium staff to a staff made out of bones to a staff made out of pure fire. A staff can be made out of anything the caster chooses. pure negative energy, fire, mithral, baatorian green steel. whatever. it won't do fire or unholy or whatever damage until you pump a few points of your staff offense into it though. If any creature steals the stafflord staff, he may make another in 1d6 weeks. if he finds the original, the replacement ceases to function. many stafflords have 2 or 3 "shells"-a stafflord term for an unpowered staff. making a staff costs 100 gp in raw materials and incense, +200 gold for an exotic material(adamantium, baatorian green steel, gehhenan morguth-iron, ETC.) and 100 experience points. the stafflord's staff is, in many ways, similar to a natural weapon. he cannot be disarmed of his staff, and his staff is immune to sunder attempts. Staff Spells: A stafflord can cast certain spells out of his staff. he can do this at will as a standard action. spells in a staff are: any on Sor/Wiz spell list. his casting stat is intelligence. a stafflord has the ability to cast two spells of each spell level. he begins play with knowledge of 2 0 level spells and 1 first level spell. at 2nd level he knows 2 0-level, 2 1st-level. at 3rd level, he knows 2 0-level, 2 1st-level, and 1 2nd-level. and so on and so forth. meaning he can know a maximum of 18 spells. Staff Defense: A stafflord, every 3 levels, gains the ability to imbue a unique defense into his staff to prevent others from using it. Example Protections: Finger Of Death: any creature other than the stafflord who touches the staff must make a fortitude save (DC=stafflord level+INT) or die instantly. This is a necromantic effect. Prerequisite: Stafflord Level 12th Horrid Illusion: Any creature other than the lord who touches the staff feels it wiggling around in their hands, and if they look it appears to be a writhing mass of tendrils. they then must make a will save(DC 10+stafflord level+INT) or drop the staff in terror. Teleporting: The staffcaster can, at will, make the staff teleport into his hands. Prerequisite: stafflord level 6 Explosive: any creature other than the stafflord who touches the staff takes 6d6 points of force damage and drops the staff. Prerequisite: staffcrafter level 5 alarm: if any creature touches the staff, an alarm spell goes off Glyph: a glyph of warding effect glyph, greater: a greater glyph of warding effect Fly: the staff flys around at the stafflord's command Prerequisite: stafflord level 5th Levitate: The staff levitates at the stafflord command Blindness: any creature other than the stafflord who touches the staff must make a fortitude save(DC staffcaster level+INT) or become blind Deafness: as blindness, except effected by deafness instead Insanity: Any creature other than the stafflord who touches the staff must make a will save (DC Staffcaster level+INT) or go permanently insane Staff Offense: the stafflord's staff gains offensive properties as well. at 3rd level it is +1, 5th it is +2, 7th it is +3, 9th it is +4, 11th is +5, 13th is +6(Special ability), 15th is +7(special ability), 17th is +8(special ability), 19th is +9(special ability), 20th is +10(special ability). each special ability can be expended for another staff defense Staff Metamagic: at 5th, 7th, 12th, 14th, and 19th level, the stafflord can apply a metamagic feat to one of his staffspells. for example, a 5th level staffcaster might choose to make his fireball spell maximized. extra staff damage: at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level, the stafflord's staff damage goes up by one damage die; for example, a meduim staffcaster's staff is either 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, or 2d6. Staff Transmutation: at 6th level, a stafflord's staff can deal either bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. changing it takes 1 round - EDIT: Changed Hit Die to D4, changed name from staffcaster to stafflord
feartheinvinceblehamster 10-22-05, 09:37 PM	bump
Kyuketsukiouji 10-22-05, 09:39 PM	Let's run this through the mill and see what comes out. The Staffcaster Core Class The name sucks. Find a better one. Here's a quick tip "<whatever>caster" is overdone and boring. Don't use it. The Staffcaster Is an olde-style wizard. He casts a limited number of spells using a personalized staff. Saves: good will BAB: poor HD: D2(yes, you read that right) And I wish I handn't. A first level anything with 2 hp? Your average staffcaster will die in a fight againt a housecat. D4, and not a point less. "The Staff": a staffcaster has a staff(hence the name) and uses it for most purposes. The Staff is always a quarterstaff, though it's form varies, depending on personality. if you ever go to a staffcaster guild you will see all kinds of staffs, from a tall adamantium staff to a staff made out of bones to a staff made out of pure fire. Staff Spells: A staffcaster can cast certain spells out of his staff. he can do this at will as a standard action. spells in a staff are: any on Sor/Wiz Spell list except: read magic, true strike, jump, any summon monster spell, wish, phantasmal killer, limited wish, circle of death, finger of death, trap the soul, simalcrum, mordekainen's disjunction, imprisonment, weird, energy drain, enervation, time stop. a staffcaster has 1 spell in his staff for every level in this class. he can have extra spells in them with the "imbued staff" feat. At 1st level it can be 0 or 1st. At 3 he can start having 2nd, then 3rd at 5th, 4th at 7th, 5th at 9th, 6th at 11th, 7th at 13th, 8th at 15th, and 9th at 17th. All right. This is the meat of the class. So, basically, this guy can get up to 20 spells, that he can cast at will. Assuming the staffcaster is smart, he'll take 2 spells from level 1-8 and 4 9th level spells (which already is odd). That's 14 spells less than a sorcerer, but he can cast them an unlimited amount of times. Unlimited amounts of anything is dangerous, but not necessarily broken (as the Warlock shows). The spell progression does need revamping, though. Make it so the character can't take more 9th level spells than others. Or just make it two spell per spell level, for a total of 18. The limits for the spell list is just too clumsy. No save or die spells (but not Wail of the Banshee?)? You can't really cover them all, so just lose it. When you can only get two spells per level, limits like that hardly matter. What's his primary caster stat? Staff Defense: A staffcaster, every 3 levels, gains the ability to imbue a unique defense into his staff to prevent others from using it. <snipped> This needs a mechanism. There also needs to be some kind of good explanation as to what happens if someone else steals the staff. Can a staffcaster make a new one? Can a staffcaster use another staffcaster's staff? Staff Offense: the staffcasters staff gains offensive properties as well. at 3rd level it is +1, 5th it is +2, 7th it is +3, 9th it is +4, 11th is +5, 13th is +6(Special ability), 15th is +7(special ability), 17th is +8(special ability), 19th is +9(special ability), 20th is +10(special ability). each special ability can be expended for another staff defense This isn't a bad thing, but a class with caster BAB, and horrid HP (even if you go with d4s) won't want to be anywhere near melee, even with a +5 staff, so this is a cookie. Staff Metamagic: at 5th, 7th, 12th, 14th, and 19th level, the staffcaster can apply a metamagic feat to one of his staffspells. for example, a 5th level staffcaster might choose to make his fireball spell maximized. Does this work with Quicken? Is the spell's level changed? Can a spell be metamagicked more than once? Above level 9? The last one in particular is important, unless you want people to be running around with Twinned Extended Heightened Dominate Person spells at will. extra staff damage: at 4th, 8th, 12th, 16th, and 20th level, the staffcaster's staff damage goes up by one damage die; for example, a meduim staffcaster's staff is either 1d6, 1d8, 1d10, 1d12, or 2d6. Staff Transmutation: at 6th level, a staffcaster's staff can deal either bludgeoning, piercing, or slashing damage. changing it takes 1 round - These last two are cookies too. You can now commit suicide by getting into melee range a bit more effectively. Overall: Basically, you've got an ubersorcerer here. A very, very limited spell selection, in exchange for unlimited use. The fact you can't metamagic spells is actually good, since it will prevent certain abuses, but there's all sorts of horrible combinations people can come up with that will break this in no time. In particular, I'd expect anyone with some sense to take Shades and Greater Shadow Evocation as soon as possible, giving them way more spells than planned. Also, as it stands, losing your staff cripples you completely. That's bad. No one wants to be a commoner with one sunder attempt. Rating: C-. Needs way more work.
feartheinvinceblehamster 10-22-05, 10:05 PM	thanks for the feedback.
Kikoskia 10-22-05, 10:15 PM	I recommend that, in tune with the variety of staffs, you let them cast staff spells with any kind of staff. Let them have access to some of the basic level 0 spells though, so that even a staffless character can at least do 1d3 frost damage a round. You should be able to disarm and sunder it... Give it bonuses to resist being sundered or disarmed as you go up in levels, but leaving it untouchable makes the staff user able to cast with no mercy. And eliminate metamagic options... unlimtied metamagic spells... *shudder* I see this class, with work, being nice. :)
feartheinvinceblehamster 10-23-05, 04:12 PM	thank you, kikosia. what i meant to say was they gained the ability to use it with that metamagic feat 3 times per day.
feartheinvinceblehamster 10-23-05, 09:33 PM	Bump
feartheinvinceblehamster 10-24-05, 05:24 PM	STEALTH BUMP
Vadin 10-24-05, 05:52 PM	Hmm...Me thinks that the stafflord and his at will abilities ought not to be able to cast spells past level 5.
feartheinvinceblehamster 10-24-05, 06:23 PM	weren't you the one with the uber-broken weapons over on the SWRPG boards? but i'll consider that advice
Vadin 10-24-05, 06:40 PM	not UBER-broken...I just like equipping my players well, so I can send them against kick-A enemies... :D ! But seriously, spontaneous casting of anyhting much past that becomes terribly broken. and evil. totally evil.
elven warriorXX 10-26-05, 10:42 PM	...Lets see here... You could let them only be able to apply a Metamagic feat to any spell they cast only like 2-3 times a day. That will balance the Metamagic casting. Now we need to fix spells casting. Now I have nothing against the Warlock spell casting but I think it is a little unbalanced. So here is what I would do to fix it. Make them have to make a SpellCraft check that uses this formulae DC15 + (Spell Level x 3) - Caster's Level - spellcraft ranks - int mod. So a 4th level stafflord with 6 ranks in Spellcraft and a Int of 18 (+4) try to cast a 2nd level spell from his list as to roll a 11 to cast it. If he fails he does not cast it. What you think?
feartheinvinceblehamster 10-27-05, 04:42 PM	Sorry, no go. My head hurt just reading that formula. I did do the 3 times per day thing for it earlier.
feartheinvinceblehamster 10-27-05, 04:42 PM	Sorry, no go. My head hurt just reading that formula. I did do the 3 times per day thing for it earlier. After I playtested it, it is about appropriate for it's level. and in playtesting, it isn't as unbalanced as you think.
elven warriorXX 10-27-05, 06:31 PM	Okay :) glad I could help out. I may use This class with my formula in my CS :D It fits very nicely in my high arcane magic world.
feartheinvinceblehamster 10-27-05, 07:04 PM	Isn't that an incentive to keep spellcraft low?