Apocalypto-“the end is near…”
“The trees shall be torn in half,
The birds will be severed from the sky.
The water will swell red as death,
And the maggots will seek the light.”
(Psyclon Nine, “Lamb of God”)
Basic summery: A charisma SAD class which abilities focused on bringing misery and death. I’m hoping to make it equal in power to a PC class, but it would be used mainly for NPCs since its abilities would make it awkward for PCs.
“When left to rest object rust, and thing beautiful are dulled by the maw of languor. We exist to keep the world on its edge, for only then may it shines in it fullest glory,” Herson Morinton
“The once great world is marred beyond repair, a dead spec of rotten flesh in the great multiverse. We are here to remove this blasphemy and allow the greater powers to replace it with fresh, clean flesh,” Maria Ragornok
“People no longer respect their lives, the fortune that shines upon them, the proof of which is their very existence. How can people be so ungrateful to the devine entities, how can they not realiese that the greatest gift will always be with them as long as they walk this Earth? We will help them see, help them understand,” Lorten Jigsaw
As the three quotes show, the motivation driving Apocolyptese are not always the same, but their actions are: bring destruction and death, the more the better.
Becoming an Apocalypto: These weird people are born, not made. As they grow up they will develop an affinity for the dead and decaying. They will soon notice dark powers related to these themes immerging. Those who do not kill themselves in shame or seek to cure this “infliction” join the ranks of the Apocalyptese.
Out look: Apocalyptese will generally have questionable opinions on life and other living thing. Many develop psychotic flaws from a life of constant killing and those who try to prevent their inner need to compromise life will generally commit suicide within days. Disillusionment is best mentality an Apocalypto can hope for.
Apocalypto
Hit Die: d8
BAB: As fighter
Saves: As monk
Class Skills
The apolocolypto’s class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are
Bluff (cha), Concentration (con), Craft (int), Descipher Script (int), Diplomacy (cha), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (int), Intimidate (cha) Knwoledge (any)(int), Sense motive (wis), Spellcraft (int), Use magic devise removed
Skill Points at 1st Level: (4 + Int modifier) x4.
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 4 + Int modifier.
Fighter BaB, all good saves and 4+int skills.. And d8 hit die. Seriously, just too much good stuff there.
Didn't bother to read much longer, but as i see it, it's a lot more fitting for PrC and with more limited abilities.
If they said it's broken - they are probably right.
From a quick over your class - I agree with them.
-d8 HD, Good BAB, Good Saves: Not inherently broken, but really good. The class can easily be made into a melee monster without much work.
-Touch of Oblivion: Superior Unarmed Strike and Monk's Belt make this scary. Other classes have similar abilities, but why the ignoring deflection? Kinda pushes it over the edge IMO, especially for ONE LEVEL IN THE CLASS.
-Send Onwards: Death Knell at will. At FIRST LEVEL. No.
-Live Off Murder: An attempt at a drawback. Easily rectified by either curing the WIS damage, or carrying a bag of rats to murder. (Make friends with the Cleaving fighter.)
-Your Death Is Near: Nothing special really. Swift at 6 can be abused, but not inherently broken I don't think.
-Death Forged Blade: Ahem.
WHAT
Free Exotic Weapon of your choice every day, for a very, very long time at higher levels? Free feats for it? CAN DELIVER TOUCH ATTACKS WITH IT?
Starting to think this might be a joke for a class proposal.
-Shielded From Death: Similar class features abound, but on top of everything else proposed so far? Really? And it's two class features stacked into one, anyway.
-Aura of Death: Sucks in normal situations. DC is low, and they get a gigantic bonus on it. Then you walk into a town and every commoner dies instantly.
-Die On The Inside: Touch attack at will for 2Str 2Cha? You can deliver it with weapons or unarmed strikes? No.
-Smite Life: Not earth-shattering on its own I guess. Except that 17-20 points to add to attack or damage every day is kind of WTF at LEVEL FIVE.
-Maggot Horde: Free swarm control. Doesn't even fit the class IMO, and that notwithstanding it's kinda cheesy at level 7.
-Red Water: Nothing wrong with this.
-Embrace Life's Parting Gift: Oh look, at will touch attacks to give a plethora of potential debuffs? At DC16+primary stat. That you can deliver with a weapon or unarmed strikes. No.
-Splinter Blade: DC is low, ability isn't that stellar. Especially (assuming this class were at all balanced or reasonable) you're giving up your weapon.
-Might of Oblivion: Primary stat to hit, and half of it added as bonus damage. Similar class features elsewhere, but still very powerful.
-Aura of Sending Onwards: Death Knell at will in a radius. Come on.
-Touch of Pain: Save or instantly lose. AT WILL. DELIVERED AS A TOUCH. WITH A WEAPON OR UNARMED STRIKE.
-Thrust of Death: Make all of our already hopelessly broken abilities far, far better. Full Round makes it kind of poopy though.
-Swift Death: Oh look, now we can use our already grossly unbalanced class features FASTER AND MORE OFTEN.
-Nothing is a Barrier: Ahem.
GDM AT WILL
Do you even play the same game as us?
-Speed of Oblivion: Decent ability, way too high to be useful though.
-My Apocalypse: Miracle, once a week, for free. No. No. No, no, no. No.
This class puts every other class in the game to shame. Really, it does. There is no hope of this class being balanced unless every one of your stats is a 4. Even then, it's better then half of them. It needs a TON of work.
~Bowen
You know, seeing how you love a great class full of fluff, you should search for the Lightning Warrior, I'm sure you'll love it
~Bowen
Or that revised cleric that someone did.
Dear lord, this is broken. Ok, let's run through some of this:.
-d8 HD, Good BAB, Good Saves: Not inherently broken, but really good. The class can easily be made into a melee monster without much work.
Thanks for not saying its overpowered based on this.
-Touch of Oblivion: Superior Unarmed Strike and Monk's Belt make this scary. Other classes have similar abilities, but why the ignoring deflection? Kinda pushes it over the edge IMO, especially for ONE LEVEL IN THE CLASS.
What if no abilities to boost your unarmed damage worked with it?
-Send Onwards: Death Knell at will. At FIRST LEVEL. No.
I honestly dont get why this is overpowered. The opponent needs to be in the negatives for him to be able to use it and he only gains the bonuses cant be stacked multiple times.
-Live Off Murder: An attempt at a drawback. Easily rectified by either curing the WIS damage, or carrying a bag of rats to murder. (Make friends with the Cleaving fighter.).
More flavour than a drawback, to emphasize their need to kill. I may increase the minimum hip point requirment
-Your Death Is Near: Nothing special really. Swift at 6 can be abused, but not inherently broken I don't think.
Good. I'll keep it.
-Death Forged Blade: Ahem.
WHAT
Free Exotic Weapon of your choice every day, for a very, very long time at higher levels? Free feats for it? CAN DELIVER TOUCH ATTACKS WITH IT?
Starting to think this might be a joke for a class proposal.
No joke I swear. I really like this ability, but if its overpowered I dont mind making it a martial weapon, or even limiting it to simple weapons?
-Shielded From Death: Similar class features abound, but on top of everything else proposed so far? Really? And it's two class features stacked into one, anyway.
Should i give it saves here and delay the AC bonus until level 4 or 5?
-Aura of Death: Sucks in normal situations. DC is low, and they get a gigantic bonus on it. Then you walk into a town and every commoner dies instantly.
Again more flavour to remind higher level ones that their only purpose is to kill.
-Die On The Inside: Touch attack at will for 2Str 2Cha? You can deliver it with weapons or unarmed strikes? No.
Okay, 1 strength and char?
-Smite Life: Not earth-shattering on its own I guess. Except that 17-20 points to add to attack or damage every day is kind of WTF at LEVEL FIVE.
I think I'll keep this then
-Maggot Horde: Free swarm control. Doesn't even fit the class IMO, and that notwithstanding it's kinda cheesy at level 7.
Its there since the song that inspired the class had a line about maggots. Should i just make it summon swarm with no control abilities?
-Red Water: Nothing wrong with this.
Good.
-Embrace Life's Parting Gift: Oh look, at will touch attacks to give a plethora of potential debuffs? At DC16+primary stat. That you can deliver with a weapon or unarmed strikes. No.
Lower DC to 13+primary state?
-
Splinter Blade: DC is low, ability isn't that stellar. Especially (assuming this class were at all balanced or reasonable) you're giving up your weapon.
Okay
-Might of Oblivion: Primary stat to hit, and half of it added as bonus damage. Similar class features elsewhere, but still very powerful.
I addedd it so they could melee if they needed.
-Aura of Sending Onwards: Death Knell at will in a radius. Come on.
Again I honestly don't understand the problem with this.
-Touch of Pain: Save or instantly lose. AT WILL. DELIVERED AS A TOUCH. WITH A WEAPON OR UNARMED STRIKE..
How about stunned by pain for 1d3 rounds and only ably to take partial actions for 1d6+1 rounds?
-Thrust of Death: Make all of our already hopelessly broken abilities far, far better. Full Round makes it kind of poopy though.
So does it need any changing?
-Swift Death: Oh look, now we can use our already grossly unbalanced class features FASTER AND MORE OFTEN.
Maybe allow 2 of the same kind to be used as a full round action instead?
-Nothing is a Barrier: Ahem.
GDM AT WILL
Do you even play the same game as us?.
I think that might be a factor here. For bad guys I focus on muscle for than magic so at this high a level for in my game this wouldn't be too overpowered. How can I fix it? Dispel magic at will? Greater dispell 3 times per day?
-Speed of Oblivion: Decent ability, way too high to be useful though.
This was more to aviod dead level than anything else.
-My Apocalypse: Miracle, once a week, for free. No. No. No, no, no. No..
How about storm of vengance instead?
This class puts every other class in the game to shame. Really, it does. There is no hope of this class being balanced unless every one of your stats is a 4. Even then, it's better then half of them. It needs a TON of work.
I'm honestly suprised to hear that. Sure some abilities were over powered but over all I would say it isnt even the most powerful class.
You know, seeing how you love a great class full of fluff, you should search for the Lightning Warrior, I'm sure you'll love it
~Bowen
Well I tried but I could never match the flavour of the lightning warrior
Dear lord I hope this is a troll....
No such luck
No such luck
Given that I suspect you genuinely like a lot of the flavor and features of your class, why don't you re-make it as a 10 level epic prestige class?
It even fits the flavor better ...
Best,
David
Given that I suspect you genuinely like a lot of the flavor and features of your class, why don't you re-make it as a 10 level epic prestige class?
It even fits the flavor better ...
Best,
David
True. Avatars of death should be epic, I guess it would work, but ive only used epic material twice in my game and I dont plan on using it again anytime soon...
Even normally, I don't think that in practice an UNOPTIMISED version of this class will rule supreme.
However, it IS essentially pre-optimised in a way. Nothing that can't be smashed 100ft into the ground by a not-even optimsed Cleric, though, without breaking a sweat. Persistent greater consumptive field, anyone? Dweomerkeeper? It's not nearly as broken as that.
Suggestions:
Cleric BAB. Good Fort and Will.
One signature simple or martial weapon of choice. Gain feats from a tight list and a level dependant enhancement bonus (like greater magic weapon). Making him trip and bull-rush would be just totally un-stylish.
Remove ignoring deflection bonus
Standardise all the DCs. Either by assigning a level to the ability equivalent to a spell level, or by using the 10+1/2HD+ relevant stat.
Don't introduce too many wacky exceptions to usual rules. Find the standard mechanisms to work off of.
Give Cha to saves and AC independantly
Remove the swarm stuff. Swarms should logically die with everything else. Death doesn't care about maggots at all.
Make more standard touch attacks, and give each one a "charging" duration. For instance, use a swift action to initiate stunning for one attack, a move action for ability damage for one round, etc.
Stunning with usual duration (1D4 rounds) and usual DC. Limit to class level / 3 per day. No residual incapacitation.
Ability damage with usual DC, but move that to higher levels (hardly overpowered, compare to Shivering Touch or any of the Rays of X. At will doesn't make it worse, you don't even need that many.)
Negative Levels, at most one per touch and at most character level/day. Duration can be 24 hours with the usual delayed save. This is not overpowered. With haste and Divine power a Dreadnecro could dish out 10 negative levels per round with touch attacks.
Paralysis like Lich, starting around lvl 12 1/day and then 2/d at 15, 3/d at 18, unlimited at 20.
Death Touch 1/d at 17 or so, one more each level like 9th level spells, max 4/d, with a 19+Cha DC.
Swap the disease for a slow death curse ability: 2 con drain/day until death, applicable each day at midnight. No save. Remove via remove curse, lim. wish, miracle or better. 1/d usable by touch around lvl 8 or 9, +1 for every four levels. This is clearly a useless ability to PCs, but nice for a BBEG to really make the PCs sweat when they suddenly start losing Con after a pat on the back.
Rename the Miracle to Natural Disaster. Free miracles always make people shout, but WOTC is allowed to do it, too. (4 per DAY, not one per week!) But when you can cast a Tsunami or Tornado spell, then making a little natural disaster isn't really that big of a deal. Perhaps pick a few of those spells as options that can flatten a small town. Increase uses to 1/d. No use being evil if noone notices.
For epic it's seriously weak.
Even normally, I don't think that in practice an UNOPTIMISED version of this class will rule supreme.
However, it IS essentially pre-optimised in a way. Nothing that can't be smashed 100ft into the ground by a not-even optimsed Cleric, though, without breaking a sweat. Persistent greater consumptive field, anyone? Dweomerkeeper? It's not nearly as broken as that.
Suggestions:
Cleric BAB. Good Fort and Will.
One signature simple or martial weapon of choice. Gain feats from a tight list and a level dependant enhancement bonus (like greater magic weapon). Making him trip and bull-rush would be just totally un-stylish.
Remove ignoring deflection bonus
Standardise all the DCs. Either by assigning a level to the ability equivalent to a spell level, or by using the 10+1/2HD+ relevant stat.
Don't introduce too many wacky exceptions to usual rules. Find the standard mechanisms to work off of.
Give Cha to saves and AC independantly
Remove the swarm stuff. Swarms should logically die with everything else. Death doesn't care about maggots at all.
Make more standard touch attacks, and give each one a "charging" duration. For instance, use a swift action to initiate stunning for one attack, a move action for ability damage for one round, etc.
Stunning with usual duration (1D4 rounds) and usual DC. Limit to class level / 3 per day. No residual incapacitation.
Ability damage with usual DC, but move that to higher levels (hardly overpowered, compare to Shivering Touch or any of the Rays of X. At will doesn't make it worse, you don't even need that many.)
Negative Levels, at most one per touch and at most character level/day. Duration can be 24 hours with the usual delayed save. This is not overpowered. With haste and Divine power a Dreadnecro could dish out 10 negative levels per round with touch attacks.
Paralysis like Lich, starting around lvl 12 1/day and then 2/d at 15, 3/d at 18, unlimited at 20.
Death Touch 1/d at 17 or so, one more each level like 9th level spells, max 4/d, with a 19+Cha DC.
Swap the disease for a slow death curse ability: 2 con drain/day until death, applicable each day at midnight. No save. Remove via remove curse, lim. wish, miracle or better. 1/d usable by touch around lvl 8 or 9, +1 for every four levels. This is clearly a useless ability to PCs, but nice for a BBEG to really make the PCs sweat when they suddenly start losing Con after a pat on the back.
Rename the Miracle to Natural Disaster. Free miracles always make people shout, but WOTC is allowed to do it, too. (4 per DAY, not one per week!) But when you can cast a Tsunami or Tornado spell, then making a little natural disaster isn't really that big of a deal. Perhaps pick a few of those spells as options that can flatten a small town. Increase uses to 1/d. No use being evil if noone notices.
Just skimmed over the class. A lot of these are good suggestions. The more ridiculous things WOTC has made (Dweomerkeeper, I'm looking at you) are things you don't generally want to emulate.
For epic it's seriously weak.
Even normally, I don't think that in practice an UNOPTIMISED version of this class will rule supreme.
However, it IS essentially pre-optimised in a way. Nothing that can't be smashed 100ft into the ground by a not-even optimsed Cleric, though, without breaking a sweat. Persistent greater consumptive field, anyone? Dweomerkeeper? It's not nearly as broken as that.
Suggestions:
Cleric BAB. Good Fort and Will.
One signature simple or martial weapon of choice. Gain feats from a tight list and a level dependant enhancement bonus (like greater magic weapon). Making him trip and bull-rush would be just totally un-stylish.
Remove ignoring deflection bonus
Standardise all the DCs. Either by assigning a level to the ability equivalent to a spell level, or by using the 10+1/2HD+ relevant stat.
Don't introduce too many wacky exceptions to usual rules. Find the standard mechanisms to work off of.
Give Cha to saves and AC independantly
Remove the swarm stuff. Swarms should logically die with everything else. Death doesn't care about maggots at all.
Make more standard touch attacks, and give each one a "charging" duration. For instance, use a swift action to initiate stunning for one attack, a move action for ability damage for one round, etc.
Stunning with usual duration (1D4 rounds) and usual DC. Limit to class level / 3 per day. No residual incapacitation.
Ability damage with usual DC, but move that to higher levels (hardly overpowered, compare to Shivering Touch or any of the Rays of X. At will doesn't make it worse, you don't even need that many.)
Negative Levels, at most one per touch and at most character level/day. Duration can be 24 hours with the usual delayed save. This is not overpowered. With haste and Divine power a Dreadnecro could dish out 10 negative levels per round with touch attacks.
Paralysis like Lich, starting around lvl 12 1/day and then 2/d at 15, 3/d at 18, unlimited at 20.
Death Touch 1/d at 17 or so, one more each level like 9th level spells, max 4/d, with a 19+Cha DC.
Swap the disease for a slow death curse ability: 2 con drain/day until death, applicable each day at midnight. No save. Remove via remove curse, lim. wish, miracle or better. 1/d usable by touch around lvl 8 or 9, +1 for every four levels. This is clearly a useless ability to PCs, but nice for a BBEG to really make the PCs sweat when they suddenly start losing Con after a pat on the back.
Rename the Miracle to Natural Disaster. Free miracles always make people shout, but WOTC is allowed to do it, too. (4 per DAY, not one per week!) But when you can cast a Tsunami or Tornado spell, then making a little natural disaster isn't really that big of a deal. Perhaps pick a few of those spells as options that can flatten a small town. Increase uses to 1/d. No use being evil if noone notices.
Sorry I havn't replied in a while, internet problems. I guess this suggestion is more balanced and it doesnt change the flavour too much. Ill see what I can come up with using that.
Sorry I havn't replied in a while, internet problems. I guess this suggestion is more balanced and it doesnt change the flavour too much. Ill see what I can come up with using that.
Perhaps also just build one character based on this class and present it, here. That way it's easier to compare to the usual classes.