Author Topic: Ice Beast  (Read 16434 times)

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #40 on: December 12, 2017, 10:18:56 PM »
Cold aura changed to swift action and 1d4 damage, recovery changed to Frigid Touch.

I'm not making more auras.  This isn't a lot of auras kind of class as I envision it, that sounds too spammy.


Okay, what if I increase the Frozen Faculties to three.  One spells, one maneuvers, and one based on the Ice Powers themselves.  I'd throw the fatigue and exhaustion into that  Then replace and Ice Power at 5th and 10th level with the Frozen Faculty progression as before.  How does that sound?  I just feel like Frozen Focus should have a class feature based progression, the way it is now feels slapdash to me (yes, that means I did it in a slapdash manner).

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #41 on: December 13, 2017, 02:27:53 AM »
Cold aura changed to swift action and 1d4 damage, recovery changed to Frigid Touch.

I'm not making more auras.  This isn't a lot of auras kind of class as I envision it, that sounds too spammy.
Well my idea was that since either aura demands a swift action, you would only ever want to pick one of them.

Okay, what if I increase the Frozen Faculties to three.  One spells, one maneuvers, and one based on the Ice Powers themselves.  I'd throw the fatigue and exhaustion into that  Then replace and Ice Power at 5th and 10th level with the Frozen Faculty progression as before.  How does that sound?  I just feel like Frozen Focus should have a class feature based progression, the way it is now feels slapdash to me (yes, that means I did it in a slapdash manner).
Ok, that sounds a good third option.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #42 on: December 13, 2017, 10:50:56 AM »
I'll start brainstorming.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #43 on: December 16, 2017, 05:15:35 PM »
First, the construct type grants Low-Light vision and Darkvision 60 feet.  I think it would be appropriate to add those to Ice Body as gained traits.

Frozen Faculty Overhaul Thoughts

Rename Physical to Body and Mental to Mind.  Add Spirit.

Replace 5th level Ice Power with Frozen Faculty Furtherance(will contain Mental and Physical faculty improvement as well as the upgrade for Spirit).

Replace 10th level Ice Power with Frozen Faculty Finality (will contain Mental and Physical faculty reformation as well as the final upgrade for Spirit).

This leaves us with 13 choices out of 18 options which seems good but if this needs more options let me know.



Frozen Faculty Spirit
(click to show/hide)

Frozen Faculty Furtherance (Spirit)
(click to show/hide)

Frozen Faculty Finality (Spirit)
(click to show/hide)


This is basically Warforged Juggernaut Living Construct to Construct progression with the fatigue/exhaustion mentioned earlier and basically mixing a bunch of things mentioned in this thread minus the stat bonuses I originally talked about for Living Construct (and it needs something because Living Construct isn't good enough to match delayed spellcasting/maneuvers).  It's a first draft so might not be on the nose.  Feedback?

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #44 on: December 17, 2017, 06:47:42 PM »
First, the construct type grants Low-Light vision and Darkvision 60 feet.  I think it would be appropriate to add those to Ice Body as gained traits.

Frozen Faculty Overhaul Thoughts

Rename Physical to Body and Mental to Mind.  Add Spirit.

Replace 5th level Ice Power with Frozen Faculty Furtherance(will contain Mental and Physical faculty improvement as well as the upgrade for Spirit).

Replace 10th level Ice Power with Frozen Faculty Finality (will contain Mental and Physical faculty reformation as well as the final upgrade for Spirit).

This leaves us with 13 choices out of 18 options which seems good but if this needs more options let me know.
Ok.

Frozen Faculty Spirit
(click to show/hide)
Although I'm ok with the overused "make it warforged's cousin", your fluff approach seems strange to me. "the Ice Beast instead focuses on improving their connection with the ice that they are made from", so they end up closer to meatbags, able to feel fear and still having a metabolism? :???

I believe it would make more sense to go the opposite way-Spirit makes you remain closer to your previous non-ice self.

Frozen Faculty Furtherance (Spirit)
(click to show/hide)

Frozen Faculty Finality (Spirit)
(click to show/hide)
Ok.

This is basically Warforged Juggernaut Living Construct to Construct progression with the fatigue/exhaustion mentioned earlier and basically mixing a bunch of things mentioned in this thread minus the stat bonuses I originally talked about for Living Construct (and it needs something because Living Construct isn't good enough to match delayed spellcasting/maneuvers).  It's a first draft so might not be on the nose.  Feedback?
At levels 2,3,4,5,7, 8 and 9 allow to pick from a bunch of direct and simple faculty improvements? Moar cold damage, greater range for breath/aura/SLAs, etc. Also something to reduce/ignore resistance/immunity to cold.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #45 on: December 17, 2017, 07:24:28 PM »
Yeah, the fluff I wrote was before I wrote anything else.  Fixing that is easy.  Living Construct is something that came up as an option previously and was an easy ability to create a progression from (stealing from Warforged Juggernaut).


I'm not really sure how to interpret that last paragraph of yours.  Are you saying you want it to have more abilities to help it match Spells/Maneuvers in power or are you referencing the existing choices it gets based off of level?

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #46 on: December 17, 2017, 07:49:21 PM »
Moar abilities, but have them be simple passives always on

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #47 on: December 17, 2017, 07:51:25 PM »
Oh, I see.  You saying an extra list just for Spirit.  I was actually typing this up when you responded.

Something like this.

Frozen Faculty Spirit
(click to show/hide)

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #48 on: December 18, 2017, 11:16:28 AM »
Yes, that looks cool.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #49 on: December 18, 2017, 04:15:09 PM »
Any suggested changes?  Is that plus fatigue/exhaustion appropriate for a Frozen Faculty choice?

Does it need a bigger list or is a list of 5 with 5 choices that you can also take regular ice powers for good enough?


Also, are there any gaps in the Ice Powers that need filling?

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #50 on: December 19, 2017, 10:16:41 PM »
Adding extra status effects with no extra action cost sounds pretty worth it to me.

5 out of 5 plays nice for the whole "simple path" aspect. You don't need to worry about leaving anything behind, just the order you'll gain them.

Can't really think of any other Ice Powers ideas.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #51 on: December 19, 2017, 10:43:04 PM »
Oh I know it's worth it, just wanted to make sure it was appropriate and balanced.  :p

Alright, as soon as I've got time I'll finish the overhaul and then make an Ice Beast for the Zelda game redo.

Warning: this might not happen this week, I've got family coming over tomorrow.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #52 on: December 21, 2017, 08:32:33 PM »
Ice Beast has been overhauled.  Please give it all a once-over and give me any feedback, I made some extra adjustments but nothing major.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #53 on: December 23, 2017, 09:13:12 AM »
Nanshork calls himself the unnoficial homebrew reviewer.
I review Nanshork's homebrew.
-Frozen Faculty body says there's no recovery mechanism, however you still need some way to actually set up the maneuvers during downtime.
-"Feeze in Ice" :p
-Suggest that Rime Coating makes the Ice Beast's natural weapons count as magic whenever adavantageous, not only for bypassing DR.
-Frozen Faculty Furtherance's text should probably point out it's gained at 5th level, also the mind option still mentions it's an ice power that could be taken at other levels.
-Ice Power says "At each level of Ice Beast, it can pick one or more of the following options.", while several levels of the table say "Ice Power, Ice Power". Not sure which ones are typos, but I would say 2 picks per level is too much, in particular when you're still gaining spells/maneuvers along the way. Also 5th and 10th levels of the table don't have Ice Power at all.
-Wisdom of the North Wind is kinda bonkers considering you can turn this into a full progression sorceror casting off Wisdom. Even simple maneuvers get a fat +5 DC.

Offline dman

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #54 on: December 23, 2017, 10:07:24 AM »
It looks like winter has come!  Very cool template, Nanshork!

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #55 on: December 23, 2017, 01:22:05 PM »
Nanshork calls himself the unnoficial homebrew reviewer.
I review Nanshork's homebrew.
Reviewing my own stuff doesn't feel like it would end well.  :p
Quote
-Frozen Faculty body says there's no recovery mechanism, however you still need some way to actually set up the maneuvers during downtime.
Done.
Quote
-"Feeze in Ice" :p
Fixed.
Quote
-Suggest that Rime Coating makes the Ice Beast's natural weapons count as magic whenever adavantageous, not only for bypassing DR.
I'm not sure when that would apply, but done.
Quote
-Frozen Faculty Furtherance's text should probably point out it's gained at 5th level, also the mind option still mentions it's an ice power that could be taken at other levels.
Fixed.
Quote
-Ice Power says "At each level of Ice Beast, it can pick one or more of the following options.", while several levels of the table say "Ice Power, Ice Power". Not sure which ones are typos, but I would say 2 picks per level is too much, in particular when you're still gaining spells/maneuvers along the way. Also 5th and 10th levels of the table don't have Ice Power at all.
Two powers per level was always how it was even when first approved.  The "at each level" part is how it used to be before the Frozen Faculty overhaul.  None of the table entries are typos, like i said this is how you originally approved it so I'm not sure how you'd like me to change it.
Quote
-Wisdom of the North Wind is kinda bonkers considering you can turn this into a full progression sorceror casting off Wisdom. Even simple maneuvers get a fat +5 DC.
You also approved it that way too originally.  I'm not sure what you want me to do with it.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #56 on: December 23, 2017, 08:08:17 PM »
Quote
-Suggest that Rime Coating makes the Ice Beast's natural weapons count as magic whenever adavantageous, not only for bypassing DR.
I'm not sure when that would apply, but done.
Hitting ethereal creatures, plus there's a bunch of more unique defenses that make you resistant/immune to non-magic weapons.

Quote
-Ice Power says "At each level of Ice Beast, it can pick one or more of the following options.", while several levels of the table say "Ice Power, Ice Power". Not sure which ones are typos, but I would say 2 picks per level is too much, in particular when you're still gaining spells/maneuvers along the way. Also 5th and 10th levels of the table don't have Ice Power at all.
Two powers per level was always how it was even when first approved.  The "at each level" part is how it used to be before the Frozen Faculty overhaul.  None of the table entries are typos, like i said this is how you originally approved it so I'm not sure how you'd like me to change it.
Must've missed the table the first time then. If Ice Power shows up each time it's supposed to be picked, then it should appear in the table at the right times too.

Now I can't recall exactly how this was the first time, I tried to examine it as a brand new work. And something that stood out was that the capstone for spells/maneuvers is a sudden bump to full. I don't really remember if that was there the first time, but it's a tremendous power boost, probably too much when taking in account you're collecting twenty ice powers. I have two suggestions on how to address this:
-Make the class grant full martial/spellcasting progression if the capstone is going to do it anyway instead of a sudden +4 level increase at last level, reduce ice powers to 1 per level.
-Keep two ice powers per level and remove the final +4 level bump, replace capstone by something less extreme. Maybe able to melee attack and still use a cold spell, or use a standard maneuver+standard ice power as a single fullround action.

Quote
-Wisdom of the North Wind is kinda bonkers considering you can turn this into a full progression sorceror casting off Wisdom. Even simple maneuvers get a fat +5 DC.
You also approved it that way too originally.  I'm not sure what you want me to do with it.
Same reasoning as above. Plus I don't recall the feat last time, and a feat for +10 to one of your main stats is kinda of an auto-take.

So couple suggestions following on the previous:
-If you keep full spell/maneuver progression, then remove this and instead have the spiritual path grant +1 Wis per level, less imba that way and also more thematic.
-If you keep only partial progression, keep this but reduce it to a flat +2 Wis bonus, maybe can take multiple times up to 5 picks.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #57 on: December 23, 2017, 09:54:47 PM »
Fair enough on the magic weapons.

Yes, the bump to full was also part of the original.  I'd be fine with a reduced capstone but I don't have any ideas as to how that would go.

Also, the text for Ice Powers gained is wrong so you only gain 13 in the current iteration if that makes a difference.

You did approve Wisdom with the feat, but you might not have been thinking about the combo at the time so fair enough.  We'll get the faculties sorted out before we get to this, just a flat bonus doesn't feel appropriate since all the other Ice Powers scale.  There are a couple of fixes that I can see for this.

Offline oslecamo

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #58 on: December 23, 2017, 11:38:44 PM »
There seem to be 14 ice powers on the table right now, one at all levels besides 5th and 10th (eight), plus another at levels 3,4,6, 7, 8, 9 (another six). But even then yes it makes a difference, I had the feeling twenty was too much, in particular since there aren't even twenty picks.

New suggestion for the capstone, allow you to 1/day grab any one cold spell/maneuver/ice power you don't have for a limited time?

Another possibility for the +Wis option is adding the need to focus to gain the bonus, like a swift action every round to keep it going. Means you don't get to use it to prepare extra spells and harder to combo with swift action maneuvers/spells.

Offline Nanshork

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Re: Ice Beast
« Reply #59 on: December 24, 2017, 12:12:06 AM »
You're right, there are 14 choices. I missed the one gained at 2nd level. 14 does feel a bit much.

I'll ponder the capstone and wis bonus when I've got more time to focus on this.