The Judge class is inspired by Final fantasy tactics advanced and A2. Its power source is divine and role is controller with a little bit of leader mixed in. Like all divine powered classes judge powers are called prayers. It would have powers that affect a large radius of foes by passing laws and putting up wards. Its main stats would be Strength, Intelligence and Wisdom.
Intelligence is the key stat that powers all the laws. Laws would target will and involve implements and maybe even a +2 on top of that to insure it sticks. Even if the law sticks nothing happens until the foe breaks the law. Once broken the trigger effect happens, and they also get a yellow card. Yellow cards accumulate and can be spent to punish the offender with extra damage, or status effects through “judgments”. There are two types of laws, Standard laws that affect all foes in a large radius and Dark laws that target one foe to personally attack it. Standard laws say what you can’t do while dark laws say you have to do a certain action or suffer a penalty. Strength is the key stat that powers all the judgments. Similar to smites but can be done at range or in melee. More powerful effects can be created from the same judgment if the foe it is used upon has any Yellow cards. Wisdom is the key stat that powers all the wards, and healer like abilities. Seals, binds, walls, and other utility like powers fall under the ward category. The Judge is a little bit better at healing than the paladin and all the healing powers or benefits are fueled by the wisdom.
Judges can be fearsome foes in the front lines, being proficient in military weapons and up to scale armor. Some Judges opt for hide armor to keep their Intelligence to ac if that is their focus. There will two types of Judges, Persecuting and Defending. Persecuting judges focus on Strength and Intelligence to make sure they get maximum laws to stick and high judgment damage. Defending judges focus on Wisdom to maximize their defense and protective abilities and Intelligence to further protect their allies by controlling their foes actions. Judges get a rule book which holds prayers in them much like a wizard’s spell book. They also get two channel divinities called Divine knowledge and Divine punishment. One allows you to re roll a skill check and the other is a basic judgment that any judge can use.
I might even include some homebrew races that focus on the Judge class and even bring back good ol’ Saint Cuthbert. As a deity he fits perfectly for the pure lawful god. The races would include the proud and wise elephant like race, and a studious and thoughtful owl like race.
The two other classes are based off of chaos, the aberrant lord and void master.
First I will talk about the aberrant lords. The Aberrant lord is a defender/striker hybrid and the power source is undecided. The aberrant lord shifts and mutates its body to become deadlier while it uses symbionts to round out their powers. Aberrant lords need strength, constitution, dexterity, and charisma.
Strength determines all the melee oriented mutations. Tentacles, claws, sword arms, multi-arms, and powerful jaws all fall under strength. All of these mutations are more defender than striker. Dexterity powers all the ranged and movement like mutations. Camouflage, Wings, flesh bows, bone spikes all fall under dexterity. These are more made for ranged strikers and stealth. Charisma powers utility and more magical mutations. Beguiling forms, hypnotic spores, enchanting eyes all fall under charisma. These mutations are useful in many situations and great for out of combat use. Also the strong personality helps keep your sanity which is a factor of all classes that have been touched by chaos. Constitution drives symbiont powers that are talked about below. For aberrant lords constitution also fuels the secondary effects of their mutation powers.
Aberrant lords will be much like sword mages in that they can move about the battlefield easily and function like as striker. They can wear up to chain mail armor and can increase their defenses with their mutations, such as growing an exoskeleton or scale like plates. A unique ability of the aberrant lord is that any weapon they carry with an enchantment bonus on it can be transferred to any attack mutations. The idea is the mutations form around the weapon, absorbing it and taking its magical properties for the attack. This makes it easy for aberrant lords to use their natural weapons that they grow for attacks without having to worry about how they will enchant them. The different types of aberrant lords all depend on what specialty you take. There are many types of paths an aberrant lord can walk down. Animalistic, natural, undead, and even elemental aberrations are available.
The Void master is a leader/controller hybrid. The void master uses its connection to chaos to warp reality. They use their amazing powers to cause madness, fear and shatter souls. Like aberrant lords, Void masters also use symbionts to round out their abilities and give themselves more protection. Void masters require constitution, intelligence and charisma to fuel their odd abilities.
Intelligence is used to take the chaotic state of your mind and share it with your foes. With intelligence you give glimpses of madness to break down resolve and stun your enemies. These powers usually affect one to two foes at a given time and give a great amount of control of how they will act. Charisma is used to shape the chaos, giving it forms and changing the world around the void master. Ground up-heaves, turbulent vortex, and mass teleportation’s all fall under charismas realm of influence. Also using the ability to change reality helps allies and gives them unnatural boots, like rage inducing battle enhancers or regenerative flesh. Like aberrant lords constitution drives all the symbiont powers, and how many symbionts you can have on at any given time. Constitution helps withstanding the gruesome effects that your powers can have on the body.
Void masters have a special ability that if you use chaotic powers you can pay a price and squeeze out more then you could normally. They include decreases in defenses and hits to hp, but it can make powers more accurate or do more damage. It all depends on how much you are willing to sacrifice from your character to really make your powers shine. Void masters can wear up to hide armor and have training in simple weapons, but it is not their weapons you should fear but their powers. There are two main types of void masters, disciples of madness, who focus on Intelligence and charisma and the Symbiont herald who focuses on charisma and constitution.
Symbionts are key features for both classes. Each symbiont is much like an artifice in how it acts in game. Healing surge hit points, 4 + your level for defenses and you can move them as a minor action on your turn up to your constitution modifier. Your constitution also determines how many you can have on you at any given time. All the symbionts do is give you more options for powers, like how the spell book gives the wizard more options. So say your level one and want to use an encounter power, you can use the one you chose at that level or if you have a symbiont with a level one encounter power you can use that instead. Symbionts also come with a minor boost as well as the powers that come with them. Symbiont powers do not kill off the symbiont, which allow the same symbiont to be used again after the proper rest is acquired. If a symbiont dies there is a toll on the master’s body, but fear not, given time you can re-grow or find a new symbiont to take its place.
As for new races or gods for the chaos content, I think Dealkyr Half Bloods would be a great race to bring back. Also the Dealkyr themselves could be great high encounter enemies like Orcus, or even revered as aberrant gods.
So this is all the ideas I have for this so far, if anything is hard to read let me know, I apologize if my English is off.
gj with them and gl making them
i really like ur class ideas
gj with them and gl making them
Thanks for the nice words, and I do agree that it will be quite the task ahead of me.
Good luck, and let us all know how you do!
I like the Judge idea a lot. I would consider, though, instead of "passing laws" or issuing commands, that their Judgment effects work along the lines of 3e's Geas/Quest spell, or the infamous Mark of Justice.
Good luck, and let us all know how you do!
Actually Laws will more or less work exactly like Geas/Quest except you will have them at every level. The way to balance it is that each law is a minor part of the larger Geas ability. Like you have the Law “No Advancing” then each foe that fails their save must abide by that law and not move forward or suffer the penalty. So it’s like Geas except it is one specific action as pre stated by the law. Higher laws will have more powerful actions to follow. The Dark Laws are more like Geas than standard laws because Dark laws tell you something you have to do or suffer the penalty. The standard laws tell you something you can’t do or suffer the penalty.
Thank you for the words of encouragement.
As for the classes, I will make separate threads for them so that they don’t get mixed up. I mainly made this thread to test the waters and see if people would be interested in my ideas and by view count and the nice words of the posters I have decided to go all the way with this home brew project. The Judge will have its own thread while the two Chaos Classes, the Aberrant Lord and Void Master will be in the same thread, as well as the complete fleshed out rules for symbionts and Daelkyr Half-Bloods.
If you have any Ideas of your own that would contribute to the classes or just wanted to help out any feedback is welcome.
Cease and Desist
At-Will - Divine, Radiant
Standard, Range burst 1 in 10
Target: Each Creature in Burst
Hit: Intelligence vs. Will
Effect: Until the end of your next turn, if the target makes an attack, deal 1d6 + Intelligence Modifier Radiant damage, and the target is slowed until the end of its next turn.
In The Name of The Law
At-Will - Divine, Radiant, Psychic, Fear
Standard, Range 1 in 10
Target: One Creature
Hit: Intelligence vs. Will
Effect: Intelligence Modifier radiant and psychic damage. The target is dazed until the end of your next turn.
Edict of Panic
Encounter - Divine, Fear
Standard, Close blast 1
Target: One Creature
Hit: Intelligence vs. Will
Effect: Target immediately moves 6 squares away from you. The create avoids traps and dangerous terrain. Each creature the target passes counts as an enemy for the purposes of opportunity attacks.
These here may be to powerful. For implements, judges could use either a hammer or, say, a magical contract.
For the judges, I recommend instead of replicating the silly flavor of FFTA, instead reimagine the basic concept to fit more 4e lines. Lose the card buildup mechanic. Instead try something like this:
Yeah, I can see where adding a new mechanic like the card system can be a little much. I should look at the FFTA Judge as inspiration, not just a straight jacket to use. At first I was going to have laws just give out penalties if they disobey, but I can see it with both damage and penalties. The one thing about laws was that its duration would last a long time and the penalties themselves would be short. So the law sticks on for a while, but the penalty suffered would have the duration of lasting until the end of their next turn. That’s how I want to control the foes, by making them not want to do certain action in fear of being punished by the law.
Also if we did this step then I can take out Strength as a key stat. All the judgments were going to be based on the amount of cards they had, so if there is no card system then judgments would just be re-flavored smites, which is not what I want. So the main stats would be Intelligence and Wisdom and I have no idea what the third should be. Maybe Charisma since it’s important for talking skills, and then I can use it for secondary effects of the Intelligence and Wisdom powers. Yeah now that I think about it having controllers on the frontline might not be the greatest of ideas. So I will defiantly take your input into consideration.
Edict of Attrition
Daily + Divine, Zone, Implement, Fear
Standard Action, Range close burst 20
Effect: Create a zone in the area of effect. Any time a creature makes an attack in the zone, make an Intelligence vs. Will attack. If successful, the attacking creature may make an opportunity attack as an immediate reaction.
Sustain Minor: Sustain zone until the end of your next turn.
Edict of Immobilization
Daily + Divine, Zone, Implement, Radiant
Standard Action, Range close burst 20
Effect: Create a zone in the area of effect. Any time a creature makes an move action in the zone, you may make an intelligence vs. will attack against the creature. If you succeed, the creature takes 1d8 + charisma modifier radiant damage and is immobilized until the end of it's turn.
Sustain Minor: Sustain zone until the end of your next turn.
Basically, each Daily is an Edict creates a zone in which certain conditions provoke repraisal from you or your allies. This concept may make the Judge more Leader-esq. How does this work for you?
Hmmm. Perhaps you can set up the Daily powers to create encounter long battle effects, kind of like the Rage power on a larger scale.
Ya your edicts look like exactly what I wanted from my Daily law powers. Wide zone that would punish foes for making certain actions so this would be a standard law. Then Dark laws would be a lot more narrow in range like burst 1 in range 20 that would penalize a target for not making a certain action.
I haven't decided on how to balance encounter like laws, but once I figure it out I'm sure the the class will fall into place.
Thank you so much Nyronus for all your help, and I welcome any more feedback your willing to give.