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Vengeblade 10-12-06, 08:53 AM

By now, some of you have seen bits and pieces of my class options. I've been making up new ones for a campaign I'm starting next year for my friends. I just wanted to get some input on these changes and any new ideas would be great. The campaign is going to take place on a large island cluster with larger land masses on the outer regions. The following are changes/options for the classes in my campaign. Player’s Handbook: Barbarian Whirling Frenzy: A barbarian with this variant form of rage doesn’t gain the normal bonuses when he enters a rage. Instead, when a barbarian with whirling frenzy enters a rage, he temporarily gains a +4 bonus to Strength and a +2 dodge bonus to Armor Class and on Reflex saves. While in a whirling frenzy, the barbarian may make one extra attack in a round at his highest base attack bonus, but this attack takes a -2 penalty, as does each other attack made that round. This penalty applies for 1 round, so it also affects attacks of opportunity the barbarian might make before his next action. Whirling frenzy is otherwise identical to the standard barbarian rage in all other ways. At 11th level (when a standard barbarian gains greater rage), the Strength bonus increases to +6, and the dodge bonus to Armor Class and on Reflex saves increases to +3. At 20th level (when a standard barbarian gains mighty rage), the Strength bonus increases to +8, and the dodge bonus to Armor Class and on Reflex saves increases to +4. A barbarian using this variant doesn’t gain indomitable will at 14th level. Instead, he gains evasion, but only while in a whirling frenzy. A character can’t use whirling frenzy at the same time that he uses any other form of rage (or similar ability). Bard No changes at this time. Cleric Divine Pulse: A cleric with this variant can charge herself with divine power and unleash it in a burst of radiant energy. A cleric that channels positive energy can heal 1d6 points of damage for every two cleric levels. A cleric that channels negative energy can deal 1d6 points of negative energy for every two cleric levels. This ability can affect one target for every two cleric levels, each target must be within 30 ft. of the cleric. This ability is usable a number of times equal to 1+her charisma modifier. This ability replaces a clerics Turn/Rebuke undead ability. However a cleric doesn’t gain this ability until 2nd level. Druid No changes at this time. Fighter It has become obvious that the generic fighter has fallen slightly to the underpowered side with all the new classes available. So here are some new features that will be added to the fighter in addition to his normal abilities. Combat Specialization: At 5th level, a fighter becomes more attuned to the arts of war. He can choose one of three paths to follow: Armor, Speed, and Arms. If he chooses Armor at 5th level, armor no longer impedes his movement, he can move his full speed in medium and heavy armor. At 11th level, his shield and/or armor bonus each increase by 1. At 17th level, a fighter has reached the pinnacle of defense. Three times a day he can shrug off any attack, spell, or ability that deals damage, ability damage/drain, negative levels, or any other negative effect (except death effects). A fighter must declare he is using this ability after an attack has hit him but before damage is rolled. If he chooses Speed at 5th level, he gains a +10 bonus to his base speed. At 11th level, he gains a +3 insight bonus to his initiative checks and reflex saves. At 17th level, he gains true speed and is able to move up to 15 ft. and make a full attack. This is a special full round action and the movement still provokes attacks of opportunity. If he chooses Arms at 5th level he gains weapon aptitude, he can spend an hour with a weapon and move all his weapon focus and related feats to that weapon. He can do this as many times as he wishes as long as he has the weapon with him and an hour to practice with it. At 11th level, the fighter chooses to either increase his threat range will all weapons by 1 (this is applied before any other threat improving effect such as keen or improved critical.) or increase his critical multiplier with all weapons by 1. At 17th level, the fighter gains the ability he didn’t choose at 11th level. Monks No changes at the moment. Paladin Paladins are getting some major changes. First off, they no longer have detect evil. They no longer have smite evil, it is now just smite. They no longer have their turn undead ability. They must be Lawful Good and follow their code of conduct which I will write how it works in my campaign below. They get skill points equal to 4+int modifier and 4 times that on first level. They also have Balance, Climb, Gather information, Jump, and Tumble as class skills. Improved divine grace: Intended for Paladins on the high seas, at 2nd level a paladin with this variant ability gains her charisma bonus (if any) to her Armor Class, this works for touch and flat footed, but is lost if the paladin is held immobile. She loses this benefit if she wears medium or heavy armor or carries a medium or heavy load. This ability stacks (does not override) a Paladin’s divine grace. This ability replaces a Paladin’s lay on hands ability. Divine Control: At 3rd level a paladin with this ability gains an insight bonus equal to her charisma bonus (if any) on balance, climb, and tumble checks while on a ship or other unstable terrain. This ability replaces her Aura of courage ability. Retributive Strike: At 5th level a paladin with this ability is like a divine fury in combat. Every time she makes a smite attack against a foe, she gains a bonus on attack rolls equal to her charisma bonus and a damage bonus equal to her paladin level for each previous successful smite attack on that foe. This ability replaces a Paladin’s special mount. Inquisitor: At 6th level, a Paladin trains to seek out the evils that lie in the towns and cities she protects. She gains +1 bonus on gather information and sense motive checks. This ability increase by 1 every three levels after this (9th, 12th, 15th, 18th, etc). This replaces a Paladin’s remove disease ability. CODE OF CONDUCT: A paladin must be of Lawful Good alignment and loses all class abilities if she ever willingly and knowingly commits an evil act. Additionally, a paladin’s code requires that she respect legitimate authority (even if she does not wholeheartedly agree with it, like officials in other kingdoms), act with honor (not lying, not cheating, not using poison, and so forth. This does not prohibit the use of genuine strategies and tactics as deemed worthy.), help those in need (provided they do not use the help for evil or chaotic ends), and punish those who harm or threaten innocents. Any orders by the church are law, the prophets carry the will of Heironeous, and through them his orders are handed out. ASSOCIATES: While she may adventure with characters of any good or neutral alignment, a paladin will never knowingly associate with evil characters (unless assigned to by the church or state, especially when they have useful information to stop crimes and/or violence), nor will she continue an association with someone who consistently offends her moral code (see above). A paladin may accept only henchmen, followers, or cohorts who are lawful good. Ranger No changes at this time. Rogue New special abilities. Lucky: Once per day, a rogue with this ability can reroll any one attack roll, save or check. To use this ability, he must declare he is using it after seeing his roll but before knowing success or failure. Nerve Strike: Whenever a rogue with this ability deals sneak attack damage to a target, she also deals non-lethal damage equal to her rogue levels. This ability can only be used once a round. Sorcerer It has come to my attention that sorcerers know so few spells that using them in a spell point system as they are would be pathetic at best. By 20th level, the sorcerer can cast the same amount of different 3rd-5th spells as a wizard, but that’s all he knows, while the wizard can change his spells out from day to day, while the sorcerer is stuck with just those few. He also has fewer 6th-9th level spells than his wizard counterpart. The spell point system has made everyone a spontaneous caster, leaving the sorcerer at the bottom of the barrel. Below is the new chart that will be used to determine spells known for a sorcerer. Level 0 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th 1st 4 2 2nd 5 2 3rd 5 3 4th 6 3 1 5th 6 4 2 6th 7 4 2 1 7th 7 5 3 2 8th 8 5 3 2 1 9th 8 6 4 3 2 10th 9 6 4 3 2 1 11th 9 7 5 4 3 2 12th 9 7 5 4 3 3 1 13th 9 8 6 5 4 3 2 14th 9 8 6 5 4 4 3 1 15th 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 16th 9 8 7 6 5 5 4 3 1 17th 9 8 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 18th 9 8 8 7 6 6 5 4 3 1 19th 9 8 8 7 7 6 5 5 5 3 20th 9 8 8 7 7 7 6 6 6 5 Wizard No changes at this time. Miniatures Handbook Healer Healing Burst: At 8th level a healer with this ability can heal those nearby when casting a healing spell. Any time she cast a conjuration (healing) spell, she heals any adjacent allies, excluding the spell’s original target, a number of hit points equal to her healer level. This ability replaces the unicorn companion gained at 8th level. Inspired Healing: At 18th level, a healer may permanently give up 20 spell points to add her wisdom bonus (if any) to the amount of damaged healed. Marshal The marshal as we all know is relatively underpowered, so I’m adding some new abilities to help elevate them to the same level as the other classes. Confident Strike: At 3rd level, a marshal’s sheer confidence empowers his attacks. He adds his charisma bonus (if any) to all weapon damage rolls. Push the advantage: At 10th level, a marshal learns how to press his attacks to exploit a foes weakness in his defenses. For every consecutive successful melee attack made against a single foe, the marshal gains a +1 bonus on attack rolls. For every two such successful attacks, he grants all allies within 30 ft a +1 bonus on attack rolls. For example, a 10th level marshal that has successfully struck a single foe 5 times consecutively would gain a +5 bonus on attack rolls against that target and all allies within 30 ft would get a +2 bonus on attack rolls. This bonus can’t exceed half of your marshal level. If any attack misses, this ability resets to +0. This ability does not stack from multiple marshals; apply only the highest bonus to each person. Commander’s Flank: At 15th level, a marshal gains a +4 bonus on attack rolls when flanking instead of the normal +2. In addition, the marshal can declare any square adjacent to him as the square from which he is considered flanking to help determine flanking with allies. He still counts the square he is in for the purposes of determining flanking. Overwhelming Aura: At 20th level, a marshal has learned to use his aura to debilitate his enemies. While a marshal has a major aura active he can impose a morale penalty equal to ½ his major aura’s bonus. This penalty applies to the same ability that the aura’s bonus applies to. For example, a marshal with motivate ardor would impose a -2 penalty to damage rolls. The exceptions are hardy soldiers, which causes damage each round, and motivate urgency, which also imposes a penalty to Armor Class. This ability can affect a number of enemy targets equal to the marshal’s major aura bonus, all of which must be within 60 ft. All other classes are fairly balanced out since they are the ones that put these classes under the bar. Magic & Spells New spell system: Spell points That’s right, think about how psionics works, exactly like that only with arcane/divine. Use this chart to see how many spell points your class gets. Level Paladin/Ranger Bard Cleric/Druid/Wizard Sorcerer 1 0 0 2 2 2 0 0 5 6 3 0 1 9 11 4 0 5 14 17 5 0 6 21 25 6 1 9 30 35 7 1 14 40 46 8 1 17 51 58 9 1 22 63 72 10 4 29 77 88 11 4 34 93 106 12 9 41 110 126 13 9 50 128 147 14 10 57 148 170 15 17 67 169 195 16 20 81 191 221 17 25 95 215 250 18 26 113 240 280 19 41 133 266 311 20 48 144 293 343 I’ve covered just the classes covered in the PHB, ask me which chart to use for other base classes. You do not get bonus spells per day for having a high ability score. Bonus Spell points: You will use the chart on pg. 18 of the Expanded Psionics Handbook. It is your key ability modifier x your caster’s class level x ½. Spontaneous Casters: No real change here, your just using spell points instead of spell slots. No longer full round action to use metamagic feats. Preparation Casters: Your spells per day is now your spells known for the day. You can still prepare any spell, but now you don’t need to prepare multiple copies because once prepared you can cast it multiple times as long as you have spell points. Augmentation: Any spell that has a variable (i.e. damage) that is dependant on caster level starts out equal to the initial amount of spell points to cast it. You can then augment it further by spending additional spell points. You CAN NOT spend a number of spell points on a single spell greater than your caster level. Here are some examples of magic augmenting: Fireball is a 3rd level spell, so it costs 5 spell points to cast, so it does 5d6 points of fire damage. You can spend 1 additional spell point to increase the damage by 1d6, you can do this up to 10d6 but no more d6s than your caster level. Shield of Faith is a first level spell, so it costs 1 spell point and gives you a +2 deflection bonus to AC, for every 6 spell points you spend extra, you increase this bonus by +1. Spell Focus: Think psionic focus, only magical. Metamagic: Metamagic for spells works like psionics now. Use the metapsionic feats to determine how the metamagic feat functions. If there isn’t a metapsionic equivalent for the metamagic feat you wish to take, please inform me and I will adjust it as needed. Spell cost per level: 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0* 1 3 5 7 9 11 13 15 17 *You can cast a number of 0 level spells equal to three + the number of spell points gained by that class at 1st level. After that they cost 1 point per casting. You can pool spell points from other classes provided that they are from the same type of magic (i.e. arcane, divine, psionic, etc.) but nor from different types of magic. New Feat: Spell Meditation. This feat works just like psionic meditation except it works for your spell focus. Note: This system makes psionics feel a little behind in power/abilities. To level it out, psions no longer have disciplines, they can learn any power they choose.