Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 mhbjarkistef Sep 22, 2011 7:58:00	Heya! My friend's birthday is coming up, and I want to homebrew a class for her. You see, she plays two types of classes whenever she plays D&D, an implement cleric (healer/controller) or a dex-based striker(thief, scoundrel, monk). She said to me the other day "If only there was a way I could combine my two favourite styles of classes, and have a quick n' sneaky dex based healer. That would be awesome!" Now as soon as she said that I thought "I am soing going to do that!". Problem is, I need a concept. What do you guys think? What kind of a class would that be? Of course I can do something like "Instead of x you gain the inspiring word power 1/encounter", but that's not what I'm looking for. I need something fresh, a new class with it's own theme's an concepts. Was there anything like this in previous versions of dnd? Please help me come up with ideas, I only need to make heroic tier for it to work as a birthday present. (I'm also gonna buy her a 4 inch tall d20 xD) What we have so far: Class Traits: Show Lifestealer Class Traits Role: Striker/Leader Power Source: Shadow Key Abilities: Dexterity, Constitution Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, Leather Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, simple ranged Implement: Light Blades, staffs, rods. Bonus to Defense: +1 Fortitude, +1 Reflex Hit Points at 1st Level: 12 + Constitution Score Hit Points per Level Gained: 5 Healing Surges per Day: 7 + Constitution Modifier Trained Skills: From the class skill list below, choose 5 trained skills at 1st level. Class Skills: Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Bluff, Endurance, Heal, History, Intimidate, Perception, Stealth, Thievery. Class Features: Steal Life, Gift of Life, Sparks of Life, Disrupt Undead, Give or Take, Manipulate Energy. Sparks of Life  You possess the ability to manipulate the life forces around you. When you make an attack and use your Steal Life class feature you steal a part of your enemy's life force and gain a single Life Spark. The amount of Life Sparks you can possess at any given moment is equal to your Constitution Modifier. You can decrease the amount of Life Sparks you possess to improve a power with the Spark keyword, this is called Amplifying a power. You must choose whether or not a power will be amplified before using it. When you take a short or extended rest the amount of Sparks you possess is reduced to 0. Steal Life: You gain the Steal Life at-will power. Steal Life    Lifestealer Power At-will Free Action    Necrotic, shadow Trigger: You make an attack against a target granting combat advantage to you. Effect: If the triggering attack hits, it deals an extra 1d6 necrotic damage. Hit or miss, you steal a Lifespark from the target. Special: You can only use this power once per turn. Disrupt Undead You gain the Disrupt Undead Wizard Utility Power Disrupt Undead   Wizard Utility A simple gesture causes the darkness powering and protecting an undead creature to unravel At-will · Arcane, Necromancy, Shadow Minor Action  Ranged 5 Target: One undead creature Effect: The target's necrotic resistance, if any, is reduced by 5 until the end of your turn. All for one, one for all. During a short rest an ally adjacent to you can willingly lose healing surges up to your Constitution modifier. When you do this you can allow any number of adjacent willing allies to regain an equal amount of healing surges total. You can perform this action once per day. If an ally does not have any healing surges to give he can instead take damage equal to his healing surge value for each healing surge he would have given. If an ally ends a short rest with more healing surges than his usual number of healing surges for that day, he loses any healing surges beyond that number. Gift of Life       Lifestealer Utility The life you took you now give to another Encounter (Special) · Healing, Spark Minor Action   Close burst 5 (10 at 11th level, 15 at 21st level) Target: You or one ally in the burst Effect: The target can spend a healing surge. Spark: The targe regains additional 1d6 hit points. With a spark, this power regains an additional extra 1d6 hit points at 6th, 11th, 16th, 21th and 26th level. Give or Take: Lifestealers naturally fall into two basic groups: the giving lifestealer and the taking lifestealer. One specializes in siphoning the life out of his opponents while the other one uses the lifeforce around him to bolster and protect his allies. choose a build and gain it's benefits: · Give: When you restore hit points to a creature by using a Lifestealer power that has the healing keyword add your Constitution modifier to the hit points regained, but only if the healing involves the creature spending a healing surge. This feature only applies to Gift of Life if you amplify it with a Lifespark. In addition... · Take: You deal extra damage with your Steal Life ability equal to your Constitution modifier. In addition...
#2 pluisjen Sep 22, 2011 8:20:57	Haha, this sounds like a very cool birthday present. I'm basically seeing two workable concepts... one is a lifestealer, basically a vampiric sort of class that stabs the bad guy in the back, steals his lifeforce, and then releases it to regenerate friends.  Probably Dex/Con based? The other is a sort of dark bard. Basically a deathsinger kind of character whose song controls the flow of life and death, and a bit of a grim anti-hero who can just as easily suck you dry as pump you up depending on what makes most dramatic sense to him. That would probably be Dex/Cha. This kind of thing gets really cool btw if you do some formatting with images and then print it into a booklet, dunno if that was your original plan :P
#3 ToeSama Sep 22, 2011 9:37:31	Sounds like a Stalker Shaman to me (Wis/Dex Leader from PH2). But if you insist on something new, you could always makes something like a War-Medic. Uses Dex to battle and heals like a leader. Maybe something akin to the melee basic fighter/rogue from the essentials line with abilities that support and cure with successful melee basic attack hits. You could make it a subclass of the Warlord to give her some feat options. Happy Gaming
#4 mhbjarkistef Sep 23, 2011 8:56:55	I'm basically seeing two workable concepts... one is a lifestealer, basically a vampiric sort of class that stabs the bad guy in the back, steals his lifeforce, and then releases it to regenerate friends.  Probably Dex/Con based?   I managed to put these ideas into a conversations with her. She really this idea. Can you help me to execute this idea? I would like to start with the flavour, lore and base mechanics and then go into setting up the whole class. There are many ways to execute this, this is basically somone who has the ability to transfer lifeforce, which can be explained through martial/alchemical mannes, arcane studies and even sorcerer/warlock-style magic usage. Primary/Divine is maybe a bit far-fetched, but can be done. What power source did you have in mind?
#5 pluisjen Sep 23, 2011 9:24:01	Actually I think there's a perfect powersource for this concept recently introduced. Shadow. Alternatively, I think Arcane would probably best. I'm not very familiar with Shadow and I think something based on a kind of spellthief (except with energy) would also be nice. I think the best way to get the flavor down is with an evocative name and a bit of fluff. We'd probably have to start with why this class steals life. To sustain itself (and others)? Bit vampiric, makes sense. Could also be a justice thing. Snatching life from the unworthy and giving it to the worthy. Bit of divine vengeance with a twist. For sustaining, could also be that the character itself has a curse, pact, or contract with something that is stealing lifeforce. Or perhaps it's a path into undeath? Steal lifeforce because your ran out years ago and you should've died of old age? Or maybe you're saving it up for a different cause, like ressurecting a loved one, or an ancient hero, or a deity. Or maybe you're using it to fuel something inside you; like said ancient hero or deity. Maybe you have a dead hero's spark and you can bring it to life by stealing force, if you have any to spare. Then it's also sneaky. That's a bit harder to work into a divine justice attitude (unless you have a sneaky deity) but it matches with the other concepts. Especially the one with the being inside you; where you have to be sneaky to hide it from view, or because you are not that strong without fueling the force within you. If you want to make it a good tradeoff between leader/striker while being capable of both, then you could consider fueling both his stronger attacks and leader heals with the stolen energy from regular hits. That'll make it mechanically fairly different and lets you get away with both powerful hits and powerful heals, because it's always one or the other. Heh, I kinda like the idea of having an ancient soul inside you that you fuel by draining life force and that empowers you through battles. Makes me want to call it the Avatar.
#6 Mad_Jack Sep 25, 2011 2:18:01	One concept that actually has some real-world mythological background and would work well with the shadow power source is the shadow-stealer... They damage and/or control opponents by stealing bits of their shadows, and use those bits of shadow to heal themselves and others as well as for various "shadow magic" stuff like teleporting or gaining concealment/invisibility. Sort of a cross between a shadowdancer, a spellthief and a healer. As Pluisjen said, they could use something they gain from their regular attacks to empower their encounter or daily attacks or heals - the Life-stealer warlock paragon path in the PHB took a similar tack with the flavor of collecting "soul shards" from fallen enemies.
#7 mhbjarkistef Sep 27, 2011 21:00:36	Shadow would be awesome! I don't know much about this power source though, should probably look into my Heroes of Shadow before constructing the class. She loves vampires, so a life-thief is a pretty cool concept. Both the "my lifeforce ran out long ago" and the "I have something inside of me that requires more liforce than I can give"-concept is really good. Could also be a warlock-style pact. Sort of like beilings from Legends of The Seeker. What I want to know: If this class requires lifeforce to sustain itself, why does it share some of that energy? Why would you amplify your attacks and bolster your allies with stolen lifeforce you require for your own needs?  If I go with the "Something inside me" the name is definetly "The Avatar" xD I'm probably gonna be using a lot from the Vampire class when making the mechanics for this one. I want the player to really have to steal life to sustain himself, just like the vampire does. Actually, utilizing shadowmagic to gain concealment (and there take care of the "sneaky" part of the class) also sounds like a good idea. I'm gonna look at existing game mechanics in this flavour (such as the warlock path and Arcane Defiling) and see what I can come up with. I'll get back to you when I've got something :D Healing with shadow doesn't really make sence, but neither does "use lifeforce-magic to gain concealment". Is there a way to combine these two ideas? It feels very muck like Shadow vs. Arcane to me, any way to alter the flavour of these two concepts to make them meet in the middle?
#8 pluisjen Sep 28, 2011 2:55:36	What I want to know: If this class requires lifeforce to sustain itself, why does it share some of that energy? Could be a parastic bond. Life for life; I supply you with vigor from your enemies, you supply me with your life-force when there's no enemies around. Mutually beneficial. Why would you amplify your attacks and bolster your allies with stolen lifeforce you require for your own needs? Perhaps you're not so much expending the life force to amplify attacks, you are simply regaining some of your true strength, which you're burning through while you attack. Like a temporary powersurge coursing through you; you can either use that power while you are "alive again", or you can let it go to waste as your body uses it up.  Healing with shadow doesn't really make sence, but neither does "use lifeforce-magic to gain concealment". If the character is a shadow-caster, then the concealment could just come directly from the magic, not the stolen energy. Likewise, shadow magic would be applied to steal the life force, but the healing is simply done by consuming the stolen energies. Magic would suck them dry, but it's the stolen energy that sustains you. See which one you pick, I think deciding on a concept is pretty important or you'll run the risk of trying to make two classes at once and that'll just be bad for the final product.
#9 mhbjarkistef Oct 05, 2011 3:37:03	Wonderful! I realized the lifestealer can have so many flavours that settling on one would be throwing the other flavours in the trash. Why not keep it a bit open ended (like most of the 4e warlocks and sorcerers). Just use the words "parasitic bond" and "draw power from something that resides within and demands energy to live" etc. Something a bit generic that can then be changed into "I have the soul of an ancient hero" or "I have been possessed by a being from the far realm" or "I died hundreds of years ago. Since then I've been feeding of the energy of those around me, using it to amplify my physical prowess". What we have so far: · Working title: Lifestealer · Power Source: Shadow · Steals life (energy) through shadow magic · Uses his stolen energy to feed a parasitic bond he has with something inside of him which is the main source of his power. · Uses his stolen energy to amplify attacks and heals. · Is most likely Dex + Con based. Can somone with more control over the english language construct a flavour text for me? This is the template. Just basic striker stuff, not much creativity needed. Next post will focus on game mechanics and class features. Lifestealer Class Traits Role: Should this say "striker" or "leader"? *insert flavour text here* Power Source: Shadow Key Abilities: Dexterity, Constitution (or vice- versa) Armor Proficiencies: Cloth, Leather Weapon Proficiencies: Simple melee, simple ranged Implement: ??? Bonus to Defense: +1 Fortitude, +1 Will Hit Points at 1st Level: 12 + Constitution Score Hit Points per Level Gained: 5 Healing Surges per Day: ??? Trained Skills: From the class skill list below, choose 4 trained skills at 1st level. Class Skills: Acrobatics, Arcana, Athletics, Bluff, Endurance, Heal, History, Intimidate, Perception, Stealth, Thievery. Should I add: Dungeoneering, Streetwise, Insight? Should I make stealth or arcana a fixed skill?   Class Features: Etc..
#10 mhbjarkistef Oct 05, 2011 3:45:27	What I want to do first is translate flavor into class traits. Wizards did a wonderful job with the vampire and how they forced it to behave like a vampire. (Blood is Life). I want to do the same thing with this class. If my own lifeforce isn't enough to sustain me, does that mean that if I don't steal energy I become weak? Or does it simply mean that I'm just a regular everyday normal guy? Should this be in the form of healing surges (weak) or damage penalties (just a normal guy). Perhaps if he doesn't steal life he becomes weakened until he can refuel? How does lifestealing work, and how does it amplify my attacks n' heals? Is it a "once per encounter" thing or something more frequent. Are there many different ways of stealing energy? How does he lead, and how far does he go into the leader role? Shadow is more of a controlling source than a bolstering one. I'll probably steal a lot from the Deathpriest and Blackguard when it comes to this one.  I'm going to think about these things and post my ideas. Feel free to do the same ^^ What other "must-have" things can you imagine for this class?
#11 pluisjen Oct 05, 2011 4:15:51	The Role should probably say Striker/Leader, since it's going to be both. I'll skip on the flavor text for a bit, at least until I get a clearer understanding of how it's going to work. I'd not give the class an Implement, but rather a weapon as implement. Since you're given it only Simple weapons, I guess we should go with something Rogue-ish. I think that's what you were going for anyway, so we can probably safely limit it to "Light Blades". Surges per day, I'd just give the class a full complement. 7 + con mod. For the lifestealing and "I am weak if I cannot feed" part, I think it's better to not slam on penalties but rather not allow the class to use its better powers unless it has spare energy. My thinking is that - you steal a lifespark whenever you make an attack against a target granting CA - encounter attack powers have a limited base effect + a bonus if you expend a lifespark - daily powers don´t work at all unless you expend a lifespark - healing powers do barely anything unless you expend a lifespark - utility powers will be mix between ways for getting more lifesparks, regular powers and powers that only function if you spend a lifespark We'll need to balance the lifespark usage against your ability to gather them. That's going to be the hard part. Fortunately we're only building it in Heroic, unfortunately that's where you get most of your powers. I'm guessing we'd best get it working properly with 3 encounters and 3 dailies along with healing... At first level you'd need about 3 sparks per encounter (1 for your encounter power, 2 for healing) with an optional 4th to fuel your daily. That comes out quite nicely in a 4-6 round battle. At 9th level you'd need about 6 per encounter default (3 encounter powers, 2 healing, and probably a daily in most battles). That should still work, but you'll have to make an effort to steal a spark every round or use a utility power. Considering we want something that both leads and strikes, the best option is probably to give out enough sparks to do the one, or the other, but not both during an encounter. That gives the player freedom without making her overpowered compared to others. So an example of what I'm looking at: Steal Life - At-will - Free action Trigger: You make an attack against a target granting Combat Advantage to you Effect: If the triggering attack hits, it deals an extra 1d6 necrotic damage. Hit or miss, you steal a Lifespark from the target. Special: You can only use this power once per round. Gift of Life - Encounter - Minor action Close burst 5 Target: you or one creature in burst Effect: The target regains 1d6 HP. Spark: The target can instead spend a healing surge.  Special: You can use this power up to twice per encounter, but no more then once per round. The power heals an extra 1d6 HP (with or without spark) at 6th, 11th, 16th, 21th and 26th level. Sample encounter power: Crippling strike - Encounter - Standard action Melee Weapon Target:  one creature Attack: Dexterity vs Fort Hit: 2[w] + Dex mod necrotic damage and the target is Slowed until the end of your next turn. Spark: The target is also Weakened until the end of your next turn. Hope this gives you an idea of how I think the lifestealing mechanic would be most interesting. Alternatively, you could allow the expenditure of multiple sparks at the same time. It'll create a more complex balancing question, but also gives the player more freedom to blow all sparks on a single encounter power and give out some nasty effect at the cost of not being able to heal for a while.  For other class features, I think that a shadow hiding power or perhaps teleportation would be useful. Also a way to steal lifesparks from willing allies, but at a cost. Maybe a cool flavor ability that lets you sense out living creatures. Another cool flavor ability would be sustenance from life in some form or other.
#12 mhbjarkistef Oct 05, 2011 5:21:17	You are a beautiful, beautiful person! I love it, love it love it. My friend is going to be so happy. Regarding Lifesparks (now that name will stick): What is the max. Do we say "You can contain up to x lifesparks at any given moment. The amount of maximum lifesparks contained increases to _ at level __ and ___ at level ___" or "You can contains sparks at any given moment equal to twice your constitution modifier". I've worked with this kind of mechanic before when fixing the Avatar's Firebender, and you were a step ahead of me with this one. The "Hit or miss" part of Steal Life is essentials. In addition, i was going to suggest a method of gaining lifesparks by spending a healing surge, but I don't think that will be neccessary and might create balancing problems. When explaining this concept to a homebrewing friend of mine he asked "So will he have a damage boost (striker feature) or a healing boost (healer's lore)?". I said "both, but only one at a time". I'm going to build more on that, meaning you can focus on the leader or the striker feature. A way to do that would be a class feature selection.  If you spend a spark on a lifestealer power that has the _____ keyword you deal extra damage equal to your constitution modifier. or If you spend a spark on a lifestealer power that has the _____ keyword the target of the power regains hit points equal to your constitution modifier. Since I don't know how the leader powers will look like I don't know if the last one should say "can make a saving throw" , "regain hit points" or "regain extra hit points" (meaning it only works if the power already allows the target to regain hit points).  I'm actually leaning towards making it a CON + DEX instead of DEX + CON, since it's power are only limited to how much lifeforce he can possess at any given moment, and not neccessary how quick he is. The bulk of his damage seems to be magic damage (necrotic) and not physical. But we'll see when we start putting the thing together. I'm now going to talk to Bryndís (my friend who we're making this class for) and find out what kind of at-will powers she loves (stances, bladesinger-style, rogue or thief)
#13 mhbjarkistef Oct 05, 2011 5:48:42	Select one of the following features: Take: Hit or miss, your Steal Life deals extra necrotic damage equal to your Constitution Modifier Give: Your Gift of Life restores extra hit points equal to your Constitution Modifier. When you restore hit points to a creature by using a Lifestealer power, other than Gift of Life, that has the healing keyword add your Constitution modifier to the hit points regained, but only if the healing involves the creature spending a healing surge.  I need a good name for this feature. In Hindsight: Actually, 2(1d6+3) true heal at level 1 is a bit excessive... --- Sparks of Life  You possess the ability to manipulate the life forces around you. When you make an attack and use your Steal Life class feature you steal a part of your enemy's life force and gain a single Life Spark. The amount of Life Sparks you can possess at any given moment is equal to twice your Constitution Modifier. You can decrease the amount of Life Sparks you possess to improve a power with the Spark keyword, this is called Amplifying a power. You must choose whether or not a power will be amplified before using it. When you take a short or extended rest the amount of Sparks you possess is reduced to 0.
#14 pluisjen Oct 05, 2011 6:25:04	I think it should be able to hold as many sparks as it can get, but they start dissipating if you rest. My own idea would be to just lose all of them when you take a short rest. Optionally with some class Feats or Features that let you either retain one, or get some benefit from them. I think letting the player pick Take of Give at the start is a good idea. To keep them a bit equal it should probably trigger off of spending a spark. You'll use Steal Life a lot more then Gift of Life, after all. How about: Take: When you expend a Spark to make an attack, that attack deals extra damage equal to your Constitution modifier. Give: When you expend a Spark, any Ally targeted by that power gets Temp HP equal to your Con mod. You also make a good point about true heal, that's probably not a good idea. How about doing Gift of Life like this? Gift of Life - Encounter - Minor action Close burst 5 Target: you or one creature in burst Effect: The target spends a healing surge to gain Temporary HP equal to his surge value Spark: The target spends a healing surge for HP instead. Special: You can use this power up to twice per encounter, but no more then once per round. The power grants extra temp HP or heals an extra 1d6 HP (with or without spark) at 6th, 11th, 16th, 21th and 26th level. Wording is a bit wonky but I think you'll get the idea. You can basically give someone a bump of fake life, or you can feed them some actual life energy. Also makes it more useful to a strike-focussed lifestealer in combat while not allowing surgeless healing. You probably shouldn't overdo the Necrotic damage, or give a way to overcome resistance. Lots of monsters are resistant to Necrotic damage. Also if you want it to be Con primary then you should probably trigger the class features off Dex. Although I think Dex for hitting and Con for channeling would be better thematically.
#15 mhbjarkistef Oct 05, 2011 6:33:15	Ofcourse I'll give it a way around necrotic resistances! I am offended :P (You gain the Disrupt Undead Wizard Utility Power) I'm not too fond of our Gifts of Lives. This class is a lifestealer: He steals lifes and channels it. If there is no life to channel I don't think he could heal. So I'm thinking that this class can't use Gift of Life without a spark. What do you say? To counter: I your main role is healer there will be a level 2 utility power that gives sparks (so even if you can't make attacks you should still be able to heal) and probably a Feat: "After a rest the amount of sparks you possess is reduced to 1 (if any)". Question: Can you gain a lifespark from undead creatures?
#16 pluisjen Oct 05, 2011 6:37:35	From a mechanical point of view, I'd say yes. Otherwise you'll have to start thinking about whether you can get a spark from lots of things. Constructs? Elementals? Angels?  It gets annoying. It's also a serious bummer if you're in an all-undead encounter because without sparks the entire class is basically dead in the water, you'd only have some At-wills and weak Encounters to use. What don't you like about Gift of Life?
#17 mhbjarkistef Oct 05, 2011 6:48:54	I'm thinking of making Gift of Life identical to Healing Word, since it is the format most players are comfortable with, and the cleric is one of the two classes we are basing this stealer on. Gift of Life       Lifestealer Utility The life you took you now give to another Encounter (Special) · Healing, Spark Minor Action   Close burst 5 (10 at 11th level, 15 at 21st level) Special: Using this power conumes a spark. Target: You or one ally in the burst Effect: The target can spend a healing surge and reagin 1d6 additional hit points. The power heals an extra 1d6 HP at 6th, 11th, 16th, 21th and 26th level. Scroll up, I added some things to the last 2 or 3 posts that I don't know if you saw.
#18 mhbjarkistef Oct 05, 2011 7:12:01	I've decided to make the max sparks you can possess to be equal to your con modifier. Also, I don't think the at-will powers should be augmentable. This means that you gain more sparks than you expend. Imagine a combat with augmentable at-wills: 1st Round: No sparks, make an attack with CA, gain spark 2st Round: Use spark, make an attack with CA, gain spark 3rd Round: Use spark, lose CA, make an attack, don't gain spark. 4th Round: No spark to use, gain CA, make an attack, gain spark 5th Round: Use spark, make an attack with CA, gain spark etc This is what it will be like if you can augment all your attacks. And as you can see you wont ever stack sparks. But if we add a low max value and at-will powers that are strong on their own, without sparks, combat will be like this: 1st Round: No sparks, make an attack with CA, gain spark 2nd Round: Need the effect of an at-will, don't use spark, make an attack with CA, gain spark 3rd Round: I lose CA, use an encounter power, I still have one spark left. 4th Round: use an encounter power, use my last spark, regain CA. But this also means you can't stack too many, you'll always have to fight to get that advantage need to drain their life. This is how we translate flavour into mechanics ^^
#19 mhbjarkistef Oct 05, 2011 7:27:41	This also means that you can heal without it affecting your offense, since healing always consumes a spark.
#20 mhbjarkistef Oct 05, 2011 7:39:13	I'm wondering about the Give and Take. I'm not sure what to do with it.  We now have two very distinct groups of powers. The at-will powers and the amplifiable encounter/dailies. What if we make the Give and Take features only account for the last one. This limits its usage and makes it thematically right. I'm thinking Take will be extra damage and the give will be true heal or THP, like before. We'll just give these powers a "Spark keyword" and let the Give or Take trigger on powers with the Spark keyword. Sounds like a plan?  The other way of utilizing Give or Take would be amplifying what's already there, namely Steal Life and Gift of Life.
#21 pluisjen Oct 05, 2011 7:43:01	That all sounds fine. I agree that At-wills shouldn't be augmentable, and shutting down the healing power entirely without a spark is also fine. My idea was that without a spark Gift of Life is just false life, you're actually draining energy more then restoring it (hence Temp HP which wears off after the encounter) but not allowing it at all works as well.
#22 mhbjarkistef Oct 05, 2011 10:14:29	At-Will powers At-will 1       Lifestealer Attack Flavour text At-will · Weapon, shadow Standard Action   Melee weapon Target: One creature Attack: Dexterity vs. AC Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage + Constitution modifier necrotic damage. At-will 2       Lifestealer Attack Flavour text At-will · Weapon, shadow Standard Action   Melee weapon Target: One creature Attack: Dexterity vs. Reflex Hit: 1[W] damage, and you or one ally within 5 squares of you can make a saving throw. At-will 2: I wanted a high-accuracy attack for some reason, and since brand of the sun grants saving throw as an effect I figured the closest I could get to that was to grant the saving throw on a high-accuracy attack. I don't want to give this class Brand of the Sun 'cause I don't want to piece this class out of ton of different classes. I don't want somone to look at the powers and think "Ah, it's just like _______". Savy? At-will 2 variations: +dex modifer damage? At-will 3       Lifestealer Attack Flavour text At-will · Weapon, shadow Standard Action   Melee weapon Target: One creature Attack: Dexterity vs. AC Hit: 1[W] + Dexterity modifier damage. You or one ally within 5 squares can choose to either make a saving throw or gain temporary hit points equal to 2 + your Constitiution modifier. At-will 4       Lifestealer Attack Flavour text At-will · Implement, Shadow Standard Action   Ranged 10 or Melee touch Target: One creature Attack: Dexterity vs. AC Hit: 1d8 + Dexterity modifier necrotic damage, and you gain partial concealment until the end of your next turn. Effect: After the attack you can move 2 squares. At-will 4 variation: Make the concealment part of the effect. I was wondering, can the lifestealer take a bolt of lifeforce into his hand and use it as a missile. If so, what damage type would it be?
#23 pluisjen Oct 05, 2011 10:20:48	Hm, do you want to give them any weapon restrictions by the way? Currently they are a Weapon based class with only Simple proficiencies which gives you pretty much a guaruantuee that the first Feat will be a Superior Twohanded Weapon if you don't somehow restrict it (to something like "only light blades") As for the at-wills; the third one doesn't do anything? It's just a basic attack. The second one seems a bit off, granting a save I think is too leaderly. Could just be me but I see the Leader powers as flowing from stolen life energy, which means the at-wills shouldn't be leaderly, just a bit strikery. I like the fourth one; very flavorful. The first one is not very exciting but mechanically sound.
#24 natural20username Oct 05, 2011 20:59:20	Looks like a very nice class so far. I think I may know someone who would want to play this when it's done. I second the weapon restriction, because a sneaky lifestealer carrying a mordenkrad/urgrosh/gouge/fullblade seems very wrong. I also second the notion of letting you steal life sparks from anything, undead, elemental, automaton or otherwise. Mayhaps allow gift of life to transfer your own hitpoints to an ally if you are short on sparks? Just a thought because of the, "Crap! The wizard just got hit with an elaborate pendulum trap and is bleeding to death! Quick! Heal him!" "Uh... Well I don't actually have any sparks left... so..."
#25 mhbjarkistef Oct 06, 2011 12:02:09	Sorry about the attacks. I had to leave quickly and decided to click "post" to save what I was doing. I didn't get to finish the post xD I'm gonna get up there and fix them at-wills, and add a few ideas. I was wondering: Give or Take Should I make it so that it gives +con to steal life's damage and +con to all surge healing or Make two "Spark" riders for each feature, one for Give and one for Take?
#26 mhbjarkistef Oct 06, 2011 12:15:47	@Natural20Username I'm gonna make the weapon restriction, but do to my personal circumsatances (this being a BDpresent for a friend of mine) I'm also going to add staffs as a weapliment. Stealing life from those who don't have any lifeforce in them: I'm going to an an exlanatory section explaining how these creatures have energy in them replacing life, but that energy can be manipulated in the same way and just as well as lifeforce. I know this makes little sense but I'm gonna do it so no nasty DM can make up a stupid houserul how you can't steal life from creatures with out any lifeforce. I've been thinking about the flavour of the class in relation to the "Take life to Give life" aspect of it. It seems to me that the lifestealer can manipulate lifeforce, and  I'm going to extend that idea: Gift of Life Healing surges is your total lifeforce, you just need a way to tap into that pool of HP. The lifestealer can manipulate that pool of lifeforce, allowing you to tap into it more easily. Therefor I suggest: Gift of Life        Lifestealer Utility You see the lifeforce running through your allies, and... something... I'm not really good with flavour texts. Encounter (Special) · Healing, Spark Minor Action  Close burst 5 (10 at 11th level, 15 at 21st level) Target: You or one ally in the burst Effect: The target can spend a healing surge. Spark: The target regains additional 1d6 hit points. - Level 6: 2d6 additional hit points. - Level 11: 3d6 additional hit points. - Level 16: 4d6 additional hit points. - Level 21: 5d6 additional hit points. - Level 26: 6d6 additional hit points. Special: You can use this power twice per encounter, but only once er round.  The healing surge is lifeforce the target already possesses, the 1d6 is the "same" 1d6 you siphoned from a creature using Steal Life. Makes sense? Should Steal Life scale +1d6 per tier? Sounds reasonable. Can I use my own lifeforce to amplify my attacks, or does it have to be an external lifeforce? That's a good point... I'm going to add a class feature working similar to Comrades Succor, but more limited (2 healing surges, number of times a day equal to your constitution modifier) I'm gonna go add a few powers to that stupid at-will post.
#27 mhbjarkistef Oct 06, 2011 13:24:14	Encounter attacks continued: Encounter 1   Lifestealer attack Flavour Text Encounter · Implement, Necrotic, Shadow, Spark Standard Action  Close blast 3 Target: Each creature in burst. Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude Hit: 1d6 + Dexterity modifier necrotic damage. Spark: One ally within 5 squares of you gains 5 temporary hit points +5 additional temporary hit points per creature you hit with the power. Encounter 1   Lifestealer attack Flavour Text Encounter · Shadow, Necrotic, Implement Standard Action   Ranged 10 Target: One creature Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude Hit: 1d10 + dexterity modifier necrotic damage. You can use your Steal Life ability against one creature providing the target cover against this attack, even if you've already used Steal Life this turn and even if that creature is not granting you combat advantage. Encounter 1   Lifestealer attack Flavour Encounter · Shadow, Necrotic, Implement Standard Action   Ranged 10 Target: One creature Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude Hit: 1d6 + dexterity modifier ____ damage. You can use your Steal Life ability against one creature providing the target cover against this attack, even if you've already used Steal Life this turn and even if that creature is not granting you combat advantage. If you gain a Spark of Life in this way you can immediately use that Lifespark to amplify this attack. Spark: The target is weakened until the end of your next turn. Encounter 2   Lifestealer Attack Flavor Encounter · Shadow, Necrotic, Implement, Spark Standard Action Close blast 3 Target: Each creature in burst Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude Hit: 1d6 + Dexterity modifier necrotic damage. Spark: Make a secondary attack. This attack does not provoke an opportunity attack. Target: One creature in the blast. Hit: 1d8 + Dexterity modifier force damage. You gain a bonus to the damage roll equal to the number of enemies you hit with the primary attack. Daily Attack 1   Lifestealer attack Flavour Text Daily · Shadow, Necrotic, Implement, Spark Standard Action   Close Burst 2 Target: Each enemy in burst. Attack: Dexterity vs. Fortitude Hit: 1d8 + dexterity modifier necrotic damage. Spark: You can amplify this attack with any number of Sparks of Life you possess. For each Lifespark consumed the burst of this attack increases by 1. Effect: Each ally in the burst gains a +2 power bonus to all attack rolls unti the end of your next turn. Yeah, I'm making Steal Life once per turn, not once per round. Just 'cause...  Now I got to run again. I'll look through these powers later tonight, and hopefully add some leader stuff to them! :D
#28 mhbjarkistef Oct 06, 2011 19:31:33	As a standard action you can lose a healing surge and instead gain one Lifespark.  Minor action? Not at all? What say ye? Make in a feature or an at-will utility power? I also thought of a way to make this class a bit more dramatic, and it helps really explain why this person has to have the ability to manipulate lifeforce. I was thinking about something along the lines of "Once during each short rest you slowly decay and lose one healing surge. You can consume a lifespark instead of losing the healing surge. Once during a short rest an adjacent willing ally can allow you to manpulate his lifeforce into you. He loses a healing surge and instead you get to keep yours" It's just an idea, just something to make it a bit more dramatic and vampiric. I edited my previous posts.
#29 mhbjarkistef Oct 07, 2011 6:42:48	@PLU I agree, the at-wills should be more striker oriented while the encounter and daily should be more leader oriented. Ofcourse we don't want to have it black and white, but I think it's themetically right. I'm now going to adit my "at-wills" and "encounter" posts for the third time XD
#30 pluisjen Oct 07, 2011 7:54:54	Hm. I think the close burst encounter is too strong and too controllery; that's a really large area you're cleaning of minions. And the rider is pretty minor. You can probably model it after the Paladin. Make it a Blast 3 instead of Burst, up the damage by a lot (something like 1d10 or 2d6+mod) to make it more strikery and then make the Spark benefit 5 temp hp per enemy hit. I'm not really sure what the concept behind the other one is, so not much I can say about it. The third one is probably ok except that such large bursts are really a controller thing, I think. The Daily is too weak. You'd need to expend 2 sparks just to get to the level of the first one you made. And it's still a burst. More suggestions: statusses like Weakened, attack penalties and slowed seem really appropriate for this kind of character's offensive powers. Defensively, granting temp HP and regular HP seem to be his schtick. Converting your own energy into lifesparks I'd make into a once per encounter minor action utility power (probably at level 2) You don't want to waste an entire attack action (might as well hit someone then) but you also don't want him to have 6 sparks by the end of round 2 because he's burning through his surges so fast. Burning a surge after a short rest is probably not a very good idea; first off it makes little sense (if this guy sits reading a book for 30 minutes, he dies from exhaustion?) and second off it stops flat the ability to do multiple rests in a row to benefit from healing powers. On the other hand, surge stealing would probably be a cool feature. Maybe add another utility power (maybe at level 6?) that works like the first one except it steals the surge from a willing ally?
#31 Timmeh Oct 07, 2011 8:17:27	I agree with Pluisgen about the Close Bursts, but with a different reason. All of those Bursts are going to be counterproductive since they are All Creatures in Burst. You'll have a really tough time not hitting allies. I'd advise turning them into Cblast 3's that are "All Enemies in Blast" and perhaps having an effect line that gives a bonus to all allies in the blast.
#32 mhbjarkistef Oct 07, 2011 9:23:45	Actually, the bursts where a type. Those where supposed to be blast 3. I'm going back to do some editing. Thanks guys :D   The power with the covers:  The one against reflex: Imagine a bolt of life-force. You aim it at an enemy but another one steps in the way. Instead of hitting him it phases through him stealing some of his life-force in the progress, effectively enlarging the bolt mid-flight. The one against Fortitude.  Now imagine a bolt from from your enemy towards you. I'ts the life you are just about to steal from him. However a creature steps in front of the bolt, making it phase through him before it comes to you. This triggers a dominos effect where the bolt hits his lifeforce and breaks away a junk of it before flying to you As you can probably see I'm not too good with power creation, but this seems to realy work: I write up a concept I like and you fix the power according to usage and role. Thanks for all your help :
#33 mhbjarkistef Oct 07, 2011 9:32:49	I want to make a feat:  Weaking Siphon: Whenever you would deal damage with Steal Life you can forgo one die of that damage to instead slow the target until the end of your next turn. I also want to make the first "channel" power in 4e. I want to say "And you are considered channeling until the start of your next turn. When channeling all the squares between you and the target are considered a zone. If a creature enters or starts it's turn in a zone it takes necrotic damage equal to your constitution modifer". Do you guy see any potential problem with this? I also need more melee powers... I suck at making melee powers.
#34 pluisjen Oct 07, 2011 9:53:36	I also want to make the first "channel" power in 4e. I want to say "And you are considered channeling until the start of your next turn. When channeling all the squares between you and the target are considered a zone. If a creature enters or starts it's turn in a zone it takes necrotic damage equal to your constitution modifer". You'd have to define "between" for non-straight lines. Which would probably get really complicated.
#35 mhbjarkistef Oct 08, 2011 12:46:44	Utility Powers: Encounter, Minor You take 1d6 damage per tier and gain a lifespark Encounter, Minor, Close burst x Target: One ally in the burst Effect: The target can make a saving throw. The target gains a bonus to the saving throw equal to the amount of lifesparks you possess. Encounter, Minor You gain a +1 bonus to attack and damage rolls until the end of your next turn. Spark: The bonus increases by +1 per spark consumed, up to a maximum of your constitution modifier. Special: You can consume multiple sparks to amplify this power.  Siphoning Aura Encounter, Immediate Interrupt. Trigger: You get hit by an attack. Effect: Until the start of your next turn, when an enemy makes an attack roll against you, you can use your steal life as an free action. Encounter, Free Action Trigger: You miss with an encounter or daily power that has been amplified with a lifespark Effect: You regain the lifespark spent to amplify the attack. Encounter, Free Action Trigger: You miss with an encounter or daily power Effect: You can consume one lifespark and gain a +2 bonus to the attack roll. I don't want his utility powers to be limited to spark usage, so some of these will be modified. I mean, the lifestealer can modify the liforce within others without having to spend any in the process.
#36 mhbjarkistef Oct 09, 2011 8:55:01	I think you're right, about the at-wills representing the martial aspect of the class while the encounter and dailies represent the life-bending abilitites. At-wills: Striker Encounter, Dailies: Mix of striker, leader and controller. Give or Take For the time being i'm going to make this a basic striker/leader feature that boosts two important aspects of the appropriate role. I'll probably add something on to that later since these will be the two builds of the class: Taking Lifestealer and Giving Lifestealer. So each encounter/daily can become more role-appropariate with the appropriate rider. Updated the first post and the post with utility powers. Have decided to think of this as a "rogue that can heal". So Striker/Controller with the ability to heal and grant an occasional saving throw. I'm going to give the Lifestealer a Channel Divinity substitution, and it won't be build-based.
#37 mhbjarkistef Jan 07, 2012 5:31:29	The Lifestealer is well on his way, although I do have some minor updates (made some cantrips!). Check out what we have of the class in my signature!