Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Tempest_Stormwind Jul 26, 2015 19:58:03	I've been putting elements of this up around the forums for a while now, and I figured I should have a single thread to link to. Basically, when the Eberron Unearthed Arcana article came out, as excited as I was that it was seeing development, I was a little put off by it, and decided to try to do better. This is the result.   My Eberron Compilation, v0.73 PDF can be downloaded here.   Contains: Artificer: A complete class, following the original as closely as it can while learning from its mistakes and adapting to the assumptions of the new edition. Includes four subclasses: magitechnician (centered around invention and Spell Storing Items), spellforger (the 4e battlesmith, using Weapon and Armor Augmentation), alchemist (adapted from Pathfinder, making advanced potions and bombs) and golemist (the construct/homunculus specialist). Also includes 18 new spells, including adaptations of Spell Storing Item, Suppress Requirement, Weapon / Armor Augmentation, and Power Surge. Actually works without including permanent magic items, if you so choose. Discussion and design notes are here. Natural races for the artificer include the Rock Gnome, Human, Dwarf, and Warforged; the Kalashtar make good (psionic) artificers as well but such characters are rare. Natural multiclasses include rogues, fighters, bards, and warlocks. Warforged: A more "living construct"-esque take on the race. Employs subraces - the standard warforged ("Soldier"), along with the Scout, and Juggernaut - to handle the composite plating / body feat issue. Deliberately designed to be exceptional Fighters and Artificers. Changeling: Only a slight tweak from the UA one, mostly for clarity on its shapechanger ability and expanding its linguistic nature. Exceptionally good as Rogues (especially assassins and swashbucklers) and Bards. Kalashtar: An original creation. Uses the new Unearthed Arcana: Psionics article as a base. They naturally complement the Mystic (psion / psychic warrior / soulknife) while still being capable Monks. (As written, they also work well as paladins, bards, and warlocks; I'd been using those classes to reflect the psionic classes before the Unearthed Arcana article came out, and it's a subtle nod to their 4e presentation. They also make good artificers, but as kalashtar culture strongly reflects Sarlona (Adar in particular) while the artificer is decidedly from Khorvaire, such characters are rare.). Includes a Mindlink psionic discipline to handle telepathy; it's usable by any kalashtar, but mystics have an extra option with it. Also includes an experimental Dancing with Shadows feat, as a way of handling psionic monks; it's not exclusive to kalashtar but they can qualify without multiclassing. Shifters: A modest revision from the original UA. Much of it is tweaking (especially on the Longstride and Razorclaw traits) and I reintroduced the Dreamsight and Truedive traits (the former because it's especially memorable, the latter because of the Waterborne Unearthed Arcana article), and there's a slight new twist on Shifting itself inspired by older shifter druids. They're pretty flexible depending on their trait; they're all natural Rangers or Druids. Dragonmarks: Currently just a roadmap, I'm afraid, but it does sidestep the "can't start out marked at 1st", "have to use feats to have marks at all", and "Syberis marks? What are those?" problems that the UA approach had. Magic Item Economics and Magewright rules, intended to reuse existing 5e mechanics as much as possible. Turns out, with very slight tweaks (some of which are already suggested in the DMG), basic economics turns the 5e paradigm into Eberron's, with plentiful low-level magic items produced by guilds while higher-end magic items are sufficiently rare and treasured. Supplemental sidebars, including handling warforged feats and warforged components (includes an experimental Light Armor Master feat), expanding the role of kalashtar quori heritage (through an experimental Kalashtar Atavist feat, balanced against Svirfneblin Magic but with a psionic implementation) and adapting Eberron mechanics to non-Eberron settings. These sidebars don't actually contain extra rules so much as show new ways of describing existing rules. I didn't include action points, since I think the UA version (or the DMG's Plot Point systems) work well enough for that purpose, and I wanted to design each of the above to function without any of the others (i.e. the artificer doesn't assume action points are present to employ his abilities quickly in battle. There is still an aspect of that in a few places, though). You can still include the warforged in your non-Eberron world without including artificers to heal them, for instance.   Anything highlighed is obviously placeholder or note text. The work is clearly influenced by the UA Eberron article (the shifter and changeling are mostly identical to it) and Keith's hacked Extra Life Warforged Artificer, but quite a lot of it (especially the artificer, kalashtar, and my take on living construct) are original.   Current work, in addition to supplying the fluff in the yellow text slots: Tuning the artificer. The general structure is solid, it's mostly rejiggering at this point. Examples include the rate at which he unlocks new spells to build, or whether Prototype (Spell Storing Item) checks for a mishap when it's created or when it's used. The goal isn't to unbalance anything, and to make it fun and fast. It runs pretty well right now, but feels a bit restrictive or clunky at level-up. (The Concentration mechanic central to 5e and the class' delayed spell level access work wonders at keeping it in check.) Dragonmarks. The entire section is next on the list. (The UA version was a touch odd, since it assumed feats were part of the game and couldn't kick in before level 4. It also scaled oddly, not matching the assumptions for marks nor for feats. Lots of work on the kalashtar. The basic form of the race does satisfy me, though (especially once I noticed the subtle differences between the various forms of telepathy in 5e). Most of the general guidelines on handling unusual places in Eberron adapt pretty well already without any special rules (i.e. Xen'drik's Traveller's Curse trumps the ranger's never-get-lost abilities), but I might polish up a couple of them (for instance, the Mournland still impedes healing magic, but it might need a rule to cover spending or recovering Hit Dice as well, since that mechanic is new for 5th edition). Lists of standardized items for Khorvaire, possibly including formula notes for these. Finding open-license artwork for this.
#2 Tempest_Stormwind Sep 21, 2015 10:05:29	This post includes a changelog.   Updated to 0.73: Artificer Added: Infuse Potions can now create philters of love, as a nod to the social side of exploration. The artificer isn't good at this pillar, so the philter shows up at level 5. Altered: The quick build now lists the correct number of cantrips. Altered: Object Dependence and various spell components should now avoid causing conflicts with handedness under Sage Advice rulings. Altered: Personal Weapon Augmentation now only triggers once per turn; thanks, Cyber-Dave! It also kicks in if anyone casts Weapon Augmentation on your weapon, not just you, which helps if there's more than one artificer in the party. Altered: Combat Construction in the golemists' guild added Emergency Repairs to its bonus-action spells, and clarifies that you can still cast them as an action. Added: Prolonged Augmentation now increases to 8 hours at level 13. There's still limits to prevent stacking this up (one augmentation per piece of equipment, with an exception for spellforgers' own gear); it's mostly meant so that the 2/3 slot artificer can sustain an appropriate defensive or offensive measure for a whole dungeon once you get into tier 3. Clarified: Infuse Arcane Device require you to be proficient in the tool in question, simliar to Magecraft. Clarified: Harden Construction now page-references damage threshold rules, since they're kind of obscure. Warforged Altered: Unsleeping Sentinel clarifies that the tools used to repair warforged must be used by a proficient hand. Kalashtar Added: Kalashtar Atavist, a feat that produces "subraces" by tightening the link with your quori spirit. There's three choices, each with a 1pp option added on to any other discipline (non-mystics can just use Mindlink for this), and common "psychic" cantrips implemented similarly to the "innate spellcasting (psionics)" ability. "Fear" is considered the default, which works best with mystics, bards, and GOO-warlocks; the other two are "Empathic" (works best in a rearguard or diplomatic role, such as clerics, some mystics, or some paladins, but I can see assassins using it as well) and "Aggressive" (tailor-made for monks, but the intention is to expand it to immortals and the upcoming Order of the Knife mystics if done correctly). I'm still not sure if they'll stay, and they desperately need tuning. Altered: Mindlink's Read Thoughts ability is gone, replaced instead with a 2pp "Psychic Union" ability that allows psionic individuals to support each other at a distance. (The inspiration was a combination of Dreamscarred Press' society mind and a recent marathoning of Sense8, and I thought I could express it simply enough. There's precedent for this in 3.5, in two places: thieving mindlink and manifest another's powers, although the direct fluff is closer to RoE's Gestalt Anchor feat) As it's a 2pp option, it's only open to mystics (kalashtar have a native psi limit of 1). Magic Item Economy rules. Yep, I think I figured out a simple way to implement Eberron's economy in a 5e context without totally borking the accuracy curves. This really only required two changes: rarity of formulas (as suggested in the DMG, they can now appear at the same rarity as the item they describe) and adding a "standardized" list of proprietary formulas that let guilds build items cheaper. Once that's done, economics does the rest. The artificer works with these (and due to standardization requirements, they can't freely copy the cheaper guild-made items!), but they also work on their own. I'll put in a sample list of standardized items soon. The Potion of Healing is already included as a working example. Magewright. This is handled through Magic Initiate or an NPC ability mirroring Magecraft, depending on whether it's a specialist or a craftsman magewright. Just bolt it onto the right NPC and go.   Updated to 0.71: Kalashtar: Adjusted up the Naturally Psionic psi point progression slightly; instead of 1-2-3-4, it's now 1-3-6-10. This is still placeholder until we see more of the mystic's progression. I'm basing it off of the Spell Point progression in the DMG now. Their racial psi point maximum is still fixed at 1. Kalashtar: Mindlink has a second "read thoughts" option for 2pp (which means it's only open to kalashtar mystics, since the racial psi cap is still 1), and Naturally Psionic is altered slightly to  make it clear that Mindlink still uses Intelligence to set save DCs. It's priced at 2pp because it's a limited form of Detect Thoughts, a 2nd level spell (which would cost 3pp on a direct conversion, but the mindlink version is intended to be weaker and less flexible. If this proves problematic, it goes up to 3pp, or I copy over more of Detect Thoughts' limitations). I'm very much open to replacing this with anything else; it's there as a placeholder to remind me of the design space for a 2pp ability while giving people something to play with. Kalashtar: Dev notes on the subrace idea, which effectively adds a new 1pp power to Mindlink based on your quori spirit. Rather than group them entirely by lineage, they're grouped by dominant emotion (so, for instance, not all Fear-dominant kalashtar are of Harath's lineage and thus male.). The current plans are for a Primal Fear style debuff (most useful for characters looking to influence a target's mind in combat), an empathy-based ESP ability (useful for social games or rearguards; the fluff for this is the fluff text for the kalashtar race), and a mild telekinetic effect (favoring monks in combat, but possibly worded to work for full-contact mages as well.). The fluff for these abilities will emphasize their alien, Quori nature, and hopefully they won't be too powerful once finished. (1pp is roughly half of a 1st level spell.) Kalashtar: A new feat, Dancing with Shadows, is added. Destpite reflecting the kalashtar's martial art, it's not exclusively for kalashtar, though they're the only race that can qualify for it without multiclassing. It should still work for anyone interested in a psionic monk without developing an entire "Way of the Mystic" or somesuch. It's experimental, playing around with an interesting idea I had (namely, letting psi points and ki points be spent on each other's effects; doing so gives you a small amount of renewable fuel for your psionic powers and a deeper-but-daily reserve for your ki powers). For balance reasons it's inefficient, doubling the cost if you spend the wrong kind of point, but that's something testing works out. Shifter: Originally, I didn't like how Longstride shifter rogues (and some monks) effectively didn't gain anything from their trait, so I added a difficult-terrain workaround to it. This revision, I moved that over to Cliffwalk (more appropriate, and it gives them some shifting benefit in flat terrain) and adjusted Longstride to a simple speed boost if you dash while shifting (regardless of whether or not you do so as a bonus action, so it works for rogues and monks too). I haven't changed anything on it yet, but the more I think about the changeling, the more I think it's slightly low in some fashion that I can't quite put my finger on.
#3 Cyber-Dave Aug 10, 2015 15:28:29	Huh. I really like your artificer class. I would need to playtest it before making any critiques in regards to its balance, but I could see that class becoming my runner up in character choice for the Planescape game I am now playing (rogue modron spellforger who uses a hand-crossbow).   I do, however, worry about one balance issue right off the bat: personal weapon augmentation, extra attack, and advanced augmentation all stack in a manner that might be quadrative. I am thinking that the bonus damage from personal weapon augmentation should probably be a "once per turn" sort of deal, ala the rogue's sneak attack.
#4 Tempest_Stormwind Aug 10, 2015 18:48:37	Cyber-Dave wrote:
#5 Cyber-Dave Aug 10, 2015 21:32:16	Tempest_Stormwind wrote:
#6 Tempest_Stormwind Aug 11, 2015 10:54:14	Cyber-Dave wrote:
#7 Tempest_Stormwind Sep 09, 2015 12:39:30	Updated to 0.72; new stuff in the changelog. The biggest bits are codified magic item economy rules (which will see expansion and templating as I find time) and kalashtar subraces (handled via a feat instead of using standard subrace mechanics, since the race itself was fine without any special mods but I liked the mechanics for the subrace powers I'd made).   I did implement the "once per turn" take on Personal Weapon Augmentation at Cyber-Dave's suggestion. Part of my goal is to keep the amount of text down, and that was the simplest way to do it.   I'm still curious as to my last question in the previous post.