DivHead [base] (Magipunk)

[Sneaky_Sable]

Thinking to make it tough, so you probably should qualify for Virtual Being in your own right(that is, without the Virtual Being levels), stuff you no longer qualify for stop working(but you can take normal retraining to exchange them for new stuff). Would be weird if it was easier to become one by dying than by training.
Thought bottle shouldn't do anything, since you never lost any XP or levels, you just replaced them.

And absolutely all of this! You should already qualify for the VB before jumping off a building and expecting to wake up on the grid. If you don't qualify to become a VB, then when you die, your party digs a nice hole for you (If you left a corpse).

[sirpercival]

There's a problem with all this -- VB isn't a DivHead prc (I just remembered, it's PW + Holo).

[Sneaky_Sable]

There's a problem with all this -- VB isn't a DivHead prc (I just remembered, it's PW + Holo).

Any way to make a 10 level prestige class "Oracle Construct" that has the prerequisites "Die gloriously"?

[sirpercival]

Yes.

[sirpercival]

The HackSpider familiar seemed too essential to be a feat, so it's now a class feature.  There is also a feat that lets you turn it into an item familiar.  Rock it!

[Garryl]

Yay. I like spiders. This one is cool. But it probably shouldn't emulate an Assist spider because that would completely invalidate the normal Hack check bonus.
Haven't looked at the spell list in depth, but Sight of Strife shouldn't be the same level as Sight of War. I'd move Strife up to 6th. It is (supposed to be) strictly more powerful, after all.

[sirpercival]

Well, when it is emulating an assist spider, you lose the ability to do anything else with it (like cast spells or gather info, etc.) for a number of days.  It can't be recalled until its assignment is done, so you're trading functionality for a bonus on Hack checks.

I'll check the spell list.

EDIT: Yes, that was an error.  It should have been 6th.

[Garryl]

For the personal sensor, what happens when it moves more than 50'/level away? Such as if you move farther away from it. Does it stay immobile? Disappear? Get dragged back in range? Teleport over to you? Make popcorn? Become a sentient, free-willed entity bent on world domination, yet unable to perform any actions that would advance those goals due to being a lowly scrying sensor?

Permanent Uplink lets you gains a bonus on a check as a standard action. So, obviously, it's not made as part of the check. Which begs the question, which check gains the bonus? I'd suggest making it applicable to any one qualifying check made (or started in the case of long action checks) within the next 1 minute or 1 hour or something.

Hack should be better at low levels. The Archivist gets it as sort of a throwaway class feature because, well, full casting. On a partial caster, it's competing in the same concept space as the Bard's Bardic Music. In addition to having numerous sources that boost that like nobody's business, the music is more reliable, versatile, and powerful at lower levels. With simple weapons, poor BaB, and few spells per day, you don't have much else to fall back on at low levels.

I think you can remove the WIP tag from this at this point.

[sirpercival]

For the personal sensor, what happens when it moves more than 50'/level away? Such as if you move farther away from it. Does it stay immobile? Disappear? Get dragged back in range? Teleport over to you? Make popcorn? Become a sentient, free-willed entity bent on world domination, yet unable to perform any actions that would advance those goals due to being a lowly scrying sensor?

While I like the last two (and see no reason it couldn't do both at the same time), I think the third one makes the most sense.  So I'll edit that in.

Permanent Uplink lets you gains a bonus on a check as a standard action. So, obviously, it's not made as part of the check. Which begs the question, which check gains the bonus? I'd suggest making it applicable to any one qualifying check made (or started in the case of long action checks) within the next 1 minute or 1 hour or something.

Good catch.  I'll edit for clarity.

Hack should be better at low levels. The Archivist gets it as sort of a throwaway class feature because, well, full casting. On a partial caster, it's competing in the same concept space as the Bard's Bardic Music. In addition to having numerous sources that boost that like nobody's business, the music is more reliable, versatile, and powerful at lower levels. With simple weapons, poor BaB, and few spells per day, you don't have much else to fall back on at low levels.

Yeah... easiest way to fix that is just boost the Tactics bonus.  I shall do so.

I think you can remove the WIP tag from this at this point.

How dare you suggest such a thing?? 

EDIT: I just realized that what I said above about the sensor is not how I've played it.  So I'm actually going to be consistent, hooray!

EDIT2: The other way to help with Hack is to give it more feat & item support.  Any suggestions?  I'm thinking a Song of the Heart-style feat could work...

[Jackinthegreen]

Well, it might be possible to have it a couple different ways on the personal sensor.  Radon had it immobile and recording the girl in his office, while it might be possible in the field to have it dragged back into range.  The main thing about it being out of range is it's no longer able to transmit directly, but the recording can still be viewed later.

And yeah, the Hack bonus does feel rather small.  I might have had Radon use it but +1 for a move at 2nd didn't quire feel worth it.  Making it a base +2 fits well, or being able to know the tactics grants +1 attack and +1 AC so we can better defend ourselves too.

More feat and item support would help, yes.  Off the top of my head, a feat later on to allow for a hack as a swift action would work, then if the character wants to do another that round it can be a move action.

As Garryl mentioned though, the spells per day seem a bit lacking.  Even though I only have 2 levels in Divhead, I feel like I really can't use my 1st level spell from having a high int because I might need it later, and then it might never get used because I still think I might need it later.  That's actually one of my biggest complaints about Bards and some other casters: 0 spells at that level and maybe getting the bonus spell from a high stat?  Unless the DM specifically puts out a boss monster that will definitely cap the day's encounters, it backfires a bit because the player wants to hold onto it just in case.

[Garryl]

A Song of the Heart style feat would only be sufficient if the base chassis was, itself, sufficient for use without the feat. A class should never require a specific feat or item to be viable unless it grants the same as a class feature (such as a few bonus feats that can be used to select the required feat like the Fighter or Ranger, or the ability to make or acquire the item like an OA Samurai or an Artificer).

(click to show/hide)

Now, there are some exception, like magic weapons and armor and common stat boosters that are so ingrained in the system that they're essentially assumed for you to have. And that's kind of okay, since everyone needs them so it's not like one class is going out of its way to acquire the needed items, or at least no more than everyone else. Don't confuse this with items (or feats) that are are really great to have but not absolutely necessary, like the items and feats that boost a meldshaper's essentia capacity or Natural Spell for a Druid.

Get the basic, low-level hacking up to par with what's needed from a class feature, and then worry about trading feats for extra boosts.

[sirpercival]

Agreed.  I was just thinking about types of support I could give.  I doubled the Tactics bonus, but I'm not sure what else to do with Hack.  Any suggestions?

[Garryl]

Can't say much about Hack in and of itself. The smallish bonuses and the move action activation lend it to being a support effect behind a more significant class feature (like spellcasting). In that regard, I'd suggest starting the 1st level spells at level 1 instead of waiting for level 2, and possibly tacking on another 1 spell/day for each spell level, giving some more longevity (especially at lower levels) and avoiding the 0 spells per day problem. However, if you want to make Hack a more central class feature, you'll have to make it worth relying on. A 50% chance of giving +2 to attack rolls isn't going to be worth worrying about past level 4 or so, even as a move action.

[sirpercival]

I'd rather leave the spell progression as-is, and make Hack a worthwhile ability.  Let's see what we can come up with.

How about: Tactics treats the enemy as flat-footed, puissance grants evasion & mettle vs the enemy's abilities/spells, foe auto-confirms crits vs the enemy, secrets makes enemy dazed/stunned/paralyzed for X rounds, foreknowledge grants +Int to AC vs enemy's attacks.

[Jackinthegreen]

It'd be nice to treat the enemy as FF, especially if Dodgers or other SA classes are in the party.

[sirpercival]

That's what I was thinking.  Any other feedback on the rest of it?

[sirpercival]

I'd rather leave the spell progression as-is, and make Hack a worthwhile ability.  Let's see what we can come up with.

How about: Tactics treats the enemy as flat-footed, puissance grants evasion & mettle vs the enemy's abilities/spells, foe auto-confirms crits vs the enemy, secrets makes enemy dazed/stunned/paralyzed for X rounds, foreknowledge grants +Int to AC vs enemy's attacks.

Bump.

[Jackinthegreen]

Evasion and mettle would give a nice oomph to puissance, yes.  That or upping the save bonus to at least +2 and scaling with level.  Foe definitely needs more than 1d6.  Adding auto-confirm on that would help, but I can't help but feel it still needs more to it.  2d6 and higher would be more expected of an ability at 8th or later.  Secrets doing dazed, stunned, or paralyzed for X rounds seems like a good idea by 11th when other casters have the ability to do the same at 7th I think.  Foreknowledge probably needs more than just an AC boost because it still looks like attacks outpace AC as things progress.

I'd need to compare these with both bard and archivist abilities though since it's very much a mashup of those leaning more towards bard because of the more limited casting.

[Jackinthegreen]

By the way, is Speak With Dead intentionally not on the list?

Also:

In addition, a DivHead can take 20 on a Perception check to search a room by spending a full-round action.

I'm guessing it can't be used on a volume of goods, or on a body?

[sirpercival]

By the way, is Speak With Dead intentionally not on the list?

It's not on the list because it's necromancy and not divination and so when I got the list of all the divination spells it wasn't on there.  Lol.  I'll add it.

Also:

In addition, a DivHead can take 20 on a Perception check to search a room by spending a full-round action.

I'm guessing it can't be used on a volume of goods, or on a body?

Correct.  The overlay is only so helpful.

In the absence of other feedback, I'm going to change Hack to be what I suggested a few posts ago.