Geomancer
Role Defender. Through intense studies and rigorous training, you evoke the energies of Earth, Water, and Wind.
Power Source Primal. Your powers come from nature, and you channel them through your own body and mind.
Key Abilities Wisdom, Constitution, Intelligence
Armor Proficiencies Cloth, Leather, Hide
Weapon Proficiencies Simple Melee Weapons, Sling
Implement Orb, staffs, rods
Bonus to Defense +1 Will, +1 Fort, +1 Ref
Hit points at 1st Level 15+ Constitution Score
Hit Points per Level Gained 6
Healing Surges per Day 10+Constitution Modifier
Trained Skills Nature. From the class skills list below, choose 3 more trained skills at 1st level.
Class skills Athletics, Diplomacy, Dungeoneering, Endurance, Heal, Insight, Nature, Perception
Geomancer Class Features
Ritual Caster You gain the Ritual Caster feat as a bonus feat, allowing you to use magical rituals. You possess a ritual book, and it contains two 1st-level rituals of your choice that you have mastered.
Ritual Book You possess a ritual book, and it contains the Animal Messenger and 1 other level 1 ritual of your choice, which you have mastered.
Geo Invocations Some Geomancer powers have the Geo keyword. These abilities rely on geomancer's location and current environment. Each Geo power has up to three effects, and you can determine the environment a geomancer is in with the table below. If more than one of the environments apply, decide randomly between them. If none of the possible Geo effects apply, decide randomly between all of them. A Geomancer always knows what environment he's in, and can tell what effects he can get out of his geo powers.
Geo powers used in an earth environment gain the Earth keyword. Geo powers used in a Wind environment gain the Wind keyword. Geo powers used in a Water environment gain the Water keyword.
Elemental Invocations Most geomancer evocations have the earth, water, or wind keywords. If a power doesn't have the Geo keyword, and the power's elemental keyword matches the local environment (See Geo Invoctions) , any of the power's effects based on the geomancer's intelligence or constitution modifier are increased by 1. If a power has none of these keywords, it gains no bonus.
Extreme Conditions Earth invocations used in a volcanic environment deal fire damage and gain the fire keyword. Water invocations used in a polar environment deal cold damage and gain the cold keyword. Wind invocations used during a storm deal half lightning damage and gain the lightning keyword.
Primal Challenge Your bonds with nature allow you to challenge enemies' primal existence You can use the Primal challenge power to mark an enemy of your choice.
Base Connection By expending a bit of your own stamina, you can call upon the power of nature at a base level to gain beneficial effects for you or a comrade.
Face to Face You gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls on all adjacent targets.
Geomantic Means Geomancers have different ways they go about working with their environment. Some geomancers channel the forces of nature through them. Other geomancers manipulate the forces indirectly. You can only use these abilities or take advantage of the bonuses certain geomancer powers provide while wearing light or no armor.
Choose one of the following options: Crafty Manipulator, Hearty Medium
The choice you make also provides bonuses to certain geomancer powers. Individual powers detail the effects (if any) your Geomantic Means selection has on them.
Crafty Manipulator: Once per encounter as a immediate interrupt, you regain hit points as though you had spend a healing surge and gain damage resistance equal to your Intelligence modifier until the end of your next turn.
Hearty Medium: Once per encounter as an immediate interrupt, you gain a bonus to defense against one attack equal to your Constitution modifier.
Geo Invocations Some Geomancer powers have the Geo keyword. These abilities rely on geomancer's location and current environment. Each Geo power has up to three effects, and you can determine the environment a geomancer is in with the table below. If more than one of the environments apply, decide randomly between them. If none of the possible Geo effects apply, decide randomly between all of them. A Geomancer always knows what environment he's in, and can tell what effects he can get out of his geo powers.
Geo powers used in an earth environment gain the Earth keyword. Geo powers used in a Wind enviromnet gain the Wind keyword. Geo powers used in a Water environment gain the Water keyword.
http://alexpizzini.com/images/tablex.JPG
I recognize that this is a centerpiece of the class but I think it is overly complicated. Furthermore it doesn't seem that it would be fun to have a character who's powers change randomly. I recommend you remove the randomness and simplify the definition of the terrain. Maybe something like:
Earth: The surrounding area is relatively dry and has a low elevation.
Wind: The surrounding area is very windy and/or has a high elevation.
Water: The surrounding area is either wet like a rain forest or their is a large nearby water source.
There is some wiggle room there but the DM can wing it. It seems important that the character know what is going to happen when they use their powers. Alternatively you could just make the terrain effect minor so that the bulk of the power works the same.
Elemental Invocations Most geomancer evocations have the earth, water, or wind keywords. If a power doesn't have the Geo keyword, and the power's elemental keyword matches the local environment (See Geo Invoctions) , any of the power's effects based on the geomancer's intelligence or constitution modifier are increased by 1. If a power has none of these keywords, it gains no bonus.
If Geo powers cancel out the Wind, Earth and Water keyword then as it stands there is no need for overlap. I don't think this power is really nessacary but if you keep it you might want to slim it down and just have the elemental keywords on non-Geo keyworded powers.
Extreme Conditions Earth invocations used in a volcanic environment deal fire damage and gain the fire keyword. Water invocations used in a polar environment deal cold damage and gain the cold keyword. Wind invocations used during a storm deal half lightning damage and gain the lightning keyword.
Cool power, however it seems like whenever your in these environments your much more likely to be fighting things adapted to the environment. That actually might penalized the Geomancer.
Primal Challenge Your bonds with nature allow you to challenge enemies' primal existence You can use the Primal challenge power to mark an enemy of your choice.
Fair enough, but your starting to have a bunch of powers here.
Base Connection By expending a bit of your own stamina, you can call upon the power of nature at a base level to gain beneficial effects for you or a comrade.
Depending heavily on what this actually means I am beginning to worry about the number of abilities you have here. This could work as a series of powers just as effectively.
Face to Face You gain a +1 bonus to attack rolls on all adjacent targets.
I'm just gonna say you should dock this. It doesn't have a lot of potential for flavor, it feels tacked on. If this is really something you want for the class I would say you should jack it up and replace Mark with it.
Geomantic Means Geomancers have different ways they go about working with their environment. Some geomancers channel the forces of nature through them. Other geomancers manipulate the forces indirectly. You can only use these abilities or take advantage of the bonuses certain geomancer powers provide while wearing light or no armor.
Just seems like you should make all or none of the powers not work with armor. It seems wierd to have sections of the class cut off. I feel like your going to end up with a Geomance hastily peeling off layers of armor to use a certain power they really like. Also, this is a Defender is it not, no armor+Defender=Compensating Class Ability. I say this can go.
Choose one of the following options: Crafty Manipulator, Hearty Medium
The choice you make also provides bonuses to certain geomancer powers. Individual powers detail the effects (if any) your Geomantic Means selection has on them.
Crafty Manipulator: Once per encounter as a immediate interrupt, you regain hit points as though you had spend a healing surge and gain damage resistance equal to your Intelligence modifier until the end of your next turn.
Hearty Medium: Once per encounter as an immediate interrupt, you gain a bonus to defense against one attack equal to your Constitution modifier.
You officially have nine class abilities, two types of geomancers that have slightly different powers that change depending on where they are. Kind of out of control. Also I think since this is going to be a Defender your making defending the party very complicated. I think you absolutely need to remove some of these abilities. Some of them work as Powers instead so I think you can keep them anyway but all of these abilities makes this class top-heavy. All-in-all you have a complicated, inconsistent class that sort of feels forced. Strip away the Ritual Caster and Fact-to-Face. Change Base Connection to a power tree, either get rid of Primal Challenge or make it unique. Change Extreme Conditions, you don't want to be fighting a Fire Giant in an Earth environment and find all of your Geo powers work less effectively. Maybe you gain a bonus that doesn't change how your powers work. Tighten the screws on Geo Invocations, it should absolutely stay, it defines the class but it could also easily handicap you. Geomancers either need to wear armor of not wear armor and if they don't they need some serious help surviving in the Defender Role.
I am excited to see your powers and paragon paths. Good luck, you have good solid foundation here.
Firstly, I'm not seeing the ritual caster feat as a Defender, but it could make sense depending on the powers.
While I can see removing ritual caster, it's for slightly different reasons. I don't see how being a defender has anything to do with ritual caster fitting. I gave the class ritual caster to enforce the "caster" feel. How would powers make ritual caster make sense? They're not directly related at all.
I recognize that this is a centerpiece of the class but I think it is overly complicated. Furthermore it doesn't seem that it would be fun to have a character who's powers change randomly. I recommend you remove the randomness and simplify the definition of the terrain. Maybe something like:
Earth: The surrounding area is relatively dry and has a low elevation.
Wind: The surrounding area is very windy and/or has a high elevation.
Water: The surrounding area is either wet like a rain forest or their is a large nearby water source.
There is some wiggle room there but the DM can wing it. It seems important that the character know what is going to happen when they use their powers. Alternatively you could just make the terrain effect minor so that the bulk of the power works the same.
The class' powers don't change randomly. It is written that the geomancer always knows what environment he's in and what element his geo powers will have.
I can understand wanting to simplify the the environment definition, but I don't think that's necessary. The table I put together is quite small. simplifying the definition might simplify the table, but it will complicate the job of the DM/player.
If Geo powers cancel out the Wind, Earth and Water keyword then as it stands there is no need for overlap. I don't think this power is really nessacary but if you keep it you might want to slim it down and just have the elemental keywords on non-Geo keyworded powers.
This ability is in here for two reasons. It is made to give an advantage to using non-geo powers in their prefered environment, and it is an artifact left from when the geomancer powers had split casting between wisdom and constitution. This ability is not necessary, but not especially powerful either.
I had elemental keywords on non-Geo keyworded powers before, but that added complication for any feats/powers/abilities I made. This way, adding an exception for non-geo powers is only in one place.
Cool power, however it seems like whenever your in these environments your much more likely to be fighting things adapted to the environment. That actually might penalized the Geomancer.
I really didn't think about it that way. It really fits thematically, but It may not be worth the complication.
Fair enough, but your starting to have a bunch of powers here.
Depending heavily on what this actually means I am beginning to worry about the number of abilities you have here. This could work as a series of powers just as effectively.
If you would actually look at the Google Doc i linked to at the top of the thread, you could see it. I wrote the description when I was in the midst of changing the power. These two powers are a version of a paladin's divine challenge and lay on hands.
I'm just gonna say you should dock this. It doesn't have a lot of potential for flavor, it feels tacked on. If this is really something you want for the class I would say you should jack it up and replace Mark with it.
It is kind of tacked on. This is here for 2 reasons, one of which I realized was not necessary as I was typing this sentence. The first reason was to encourage staying in melee combat. The second reason was to compensate for having 95% of the powers hit reflex and fortitude, but not using a weapon for a proficiency bonus. It's really no different than the attack bonus a fight, rogue, warlock, or ranger get.
One thing I may do is reduce the number of spaces the mark pulls targets, and give the geomancer a +1 to attack targets he marks.
Just seems like you should make all or none of the powers not work with armor. It seems wierd to have sections of the class cut off. I feel like your going to end up with a Geomance hastily peeling off layers of armor to use a certain power they really like. Also, this is a Defender is it not, no armor+Defender=Compensating Class Ability. I say this can go.
What class has any powers not work in heavier armor? coming up with this class feature was actually an elegant solution to a problem I had where the geomancer had half its powers attack with constitution, the other half with wisdom, and bonus effects off intelligence. That problem was choosing between health and armor. Both of those were necessary as a defender. Who would honestly take the time to strip off their heavy armor to use an ability that increases their armor?
Also, note that geomancers are NOT proficient with any heavy armor by default.
You officially have nine class abilities, two types of geomancers that have slightly different powers that change depending on where they are. Kind of out of control. Also I think since this is going to be a Defender your making defending the party very complicated. I think you absolutely need to remove some of these abilities. Some of them work as Powers instead so I think you can keep them anyway but all of these abilities makes this class top-heavy. All-in-all you have a complicated, inconsistent class that sort of feels forced. Strip away the Ritual Caster and Fact-to-Face. Change Base Connection to a power tree, either get rid of Primal Challenge or make it unique. Change Extreme Conditions, you don't want to be fighting a Fire Giant in an Earth environment and find all of your Geo powers work less effectively. Maybe you gain a bonus that doesn't change how your powers work. Tighten the screws on Geo Invocations, it should absolutely stay, it defines the class but it could also easily handicap you. Geomancers either need to wear armor of not wear armor and if they don't they need some serious help surviving in the Defender Role.
I am excited to see your powers and paragon paths. Good luck, you have good solid foundation here.
I'll take your suggestions and review the class, but please look at the full class and the way the geo invocations work a little closer.
If more than one of the environments apply, decide randomly between them. If none of the possible Geo effects apply, decide randomly between all of them. A Geomancer always knows what environment he's in, and can tell what effects he can get out of his geo powers.
Incongruity. Is it random or picked? Pick one,and get rid of the confusing language, por favor.
Other than that I gotta ask why the geomancer needs to have that caster feel? It's power source is primal, right? Rituals are more the realm of arcanists and cleric-scholars. A geomancer would take his power from the environment, no? Leave the books to the controllers and leaders. I figured geomancer was more like stuff from that cartoon, Avatar. Didn't watch it, but the concept seems to fit.
Why does the geomancer need Pally like healing? Just tying it in with base elements doesn't fit the flavor very well...
As it is, The geomancer tastes pretty sweet, but there're a few points that require refinement. There's potential for a pretty good class here.