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Messages - EjoThims

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1
Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: Sniper [3.5 Base Class]
« on: April 15, 2018, 03:45:57 AM »
Critical Precision

Prerequisite: Sneak attack, sudden strike, or skirmish class feature. 

Benefit: When you score a critical hit when using sneak attack, sudden strike, or skirmish, you deal even more damage.  For each extra +1d6 damage the ability normally adds, you add an additional +1d10 on a critical hit.  If the weapon's critical multiplier is x3, the extra damage is instead +2d10 per +1d6 the ability normally adds.  If the weapon's critical multiplier is x4, the extra damage is instead +3d10 per +1d6 the ability normally adds.  (And so on, for higher critical multipliers.) 

Normal: The extra damage from sneak attack, sudden strike, and skirmish is not improved on a critical hit. 

Special: This extra damage does not apply to any creature that is immune to the base ability (sneak attack, sudden strike, or skirmish), unless you have some means of bypassing that immunity.  Likewise, creatures immune to extra damage from critical hits do not take this extra damage either, unless you have some means of bypassing their immunity to critical hits.

I very well may be stealing this...  :D

2
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: April 15, 2018, 03:38:05 AM »

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Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: April 06, 2018, 01:11:51 AM »
Ugh, I'm falling behind.  I need to remember to look at this.

All good, I've never not been behind on this ;)

4
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: March 10, 2018, 02:25:56 AM »
We should probably get back to working on this...

I always am, just usually incrediably slowly... ;)

Right now, for new stuff, I'm bogged down in exotic equipment, on one set/type of items in particular, trying to figure out where to draw what lines without it becoming super convuluted... Trying to figure out the details of doing some loose chain based armor for the bears, modeled vaguely around both the idea of torcs/bracers (and other jewelry) in place of full armor and using extensive imprisonment chains as both armor and weapons in an uprising... but been up in the air for _months_ about how many different items to make it and which of them should have what bonuses if I do... but no matter how I slice it, it starts feeling clunky in item/weapon slot usage, since its not technically armor at all  :lol

I've had the google docs pages and charts updated to match that spreadsheet I sent you for a good while now (I know that sheet was near incomprehensible from the outside, but that's how my brain is organized), so unless you were expecting another drop to look it back over or if there's still something jumping out as troublesome with that set of changes, then classes would be the next logical step...

If you're still intent on helping with a top to bottom review, that is  :love :love :love

5
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: December 16, 2017, 09:16:03 PM »
No, it's more that you assigned values to things and I have no idea what's going on.   :lol

 :???

I switched everything to unit numbers instead of value (so 1 stat bonus instead of +2 stats, 1 skill bonus instead of +4 skills), is that what you're referring to?

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Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: December 16, 2017, 08:48:37 PM »
I can't interpret your spreadsheet.   :???

I'm not the most organized, even in a spreadsheet  :lol

Averages are used to determine midpoints for each section, red text are below midpoint, blue above.

Overall is consolidation of averages.

Speed and damage normalized to medium and divided by 10 so they weren't skewing the averages nearly so much.

Hrmm, unless there's been some formatting mishap between versions of open office?

7
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: December 16, 2017, 03:07:18 AM »
I was actually thinking about you and your resistance to stat standardization last night!

Yeah, if you have an updated spreadsheet that includes all of your changes I'd love to see it.  A few exceptions are fine in my opinion as long as they're obviously exceptions and not too extreme.

If it helps none of the classes are going to have so many changes that I'll make a spreadsheet for them.   :lol

Somehow completely missed the notification for this response. @.@

I sent you the spreadsheet I was using through FB, couldn't remember how to attach links through PM here lol

Went ahead and updated the two charts in the google docs too ;)

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Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: November 18, 2017, 08:26:01 AM »
Alright, after going back and forth on it for a (long, distracted) while, I've standardized initial stat bonuses to +2 total. :P

It was tough, but in the end, made more sense to get rid of the last few exceptions here and allow the remaining exceptions to trends in animal form to stand out a bit more.

Varied skills a bit more again though, adding sleight of hand to rats.

Nerfed Cranes some more, taking out Spot bonus and AiGO.

Bears lost reach, and they and Tigers got bite back.

Tigers got nerfed too, removing Str bonuses and shifting skills they can take 10 on down to +2.

Mostly standardized NA and stat boosts in animal form and from animal form to hybrid.

NA is now +1 and +3, with bears, pythons, and boars having more (and boars having even more than the other two), but still only gaining +2 between animal and hybrid.

Stats are now +6 in animal form, with boars, rats, and pythons gaining +8 instead.

Couple of other little tweaks to things like speeds in different forms as well, mostly to standardize. There are few random outliers, but can't remember each specifically.

Everything on Clan pages should be updated, but haven't gotten around to modifying charts yet.

If you wanna see how the spreadsheet ended up, I can send that your way too.

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Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: August 06, 2017, 03:57:52 AM »
15 foot reach feels very excessive.  Goliath Barbarian goes from Powerful Build to full on Large.  I think it's fine to just do that.

May have been why I threw the reach in there, to make it more extreme than that progression. Definitely adding bite back if taking away the reach.

Bit worried that will make them seem pigeonholed into NAers in hybrid form though? The reach and no bite explicitly supports being a weapon wielder over NAer. Think that concern may be why I took bite from Hybrid Tigers too?

Rat just feels small to me.  Rats aren't bigger than Ferrets.  The only reason I can see is to have a sneaky race of each size category (Medium and Small).

I think that may have been part of it. Perhaps with some appeal to the classic Wererats at M? :shrug S for now at least ;)

I don't understand your mindset at all on this one.  Balanced between each other does not equal cookie cutter.  Right now everything feels like arbitrary numbers you made up because they sounded good.

To me +2 stats, +4 skills, 2 feats to every race seems very cookie cutter, especially if they're all also getting the same total numeric boosts from their animal and hybrid forms.

I will totally acknowledge the current (and past) randomness was probably a bit extreme, but starting with the base animal stats, its quite clear that picking arbitrary numbers was exactly how those were originally designed  :lol

I had tried to just round out that with racial ability and role specialization boosts; finding the middle ground is what, obviously, still eludes me.

Gonna play around with the spreadsheet back and forth for a minute and update some things (already noticing some standouts like forgetting to specify speed for hybrid bear  :-\ ) and see how I feel about how where things end up there  :D

10
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: August 01, 2017, 08:20:47 AM »
Oh hey, it helps to hit "Post." No wonder there weren't any more responses.  :lol

- Wolf has Dominance listed in Hybrid form when it's a base racial trait which means it already applies to all forms.

Its better in Hybrid Form. Probably should throw an Improved on there.

- Why not just give Bears the Improved Grapple feat?

Same as others, I was paranoid about Dark Chaos Feat Shuffling. Was silly.

- Speaking of Ferret, give Ferret Scent.  It gains that as an animal, why not have it as a base racial trait?

There was a reason for it, but I can't remember and it does seem rather silly now. Changed.

- Viper having a tiny animal form is an outlier, I'm not sure how I feel about it.
 - Why do Bear hybrids get 15 foot reach?  Reach from Large isn't enough??

These are actually related, as I was staggering the extreme sizes against slight/powerful build. Hybrid Bears lose Powerful Build when gaining L size, but they're still effectively a size large in different ways. Same idea with Viper, animal form becomes but loses Slight build. I think the +6 Dex was supposed to fill the role of other benefit, but its pretty much what they should have from tiny anyway, but definitely don't wanna throw them even more.  :???

- Viper "Breath Weapon" isn't a breath weapon and so should be renamed to something like "Spit Poison".
 - I think that Rat should be size Small like Ferret is all the way down.  Don't adjust anything with the size change, just change the size.
 - Raven hybrid is larger than the base race, you can bump its land speed up to 30' to match Crane.

Done, but bit leery on the Rat size. I seem to recall there was a reason I wanted them to be M. If I remember why and still think its a good idea, may change it back.

- Why do hybrid bears lose their bite?

Tiger also does, though only those two lose an attack form between them. Think Bear was to offset the reach a bit more, but Tiger not sure any more.

 
- Why is there no progression for the boar natural weapon from animal to hybrid?

Because 3d6 seemed kind of too high? Felt good for animal boars to have an extra strong attack though, as the only physical based clan with only one attack form in animal form.

- Why do some animals get a natural armor progression and others don't?  We'll fix that, with a progression of +2 because that's what most of them have.

Literally not sure what you mean here? All animal forms have NA, and all hybrid forms have more NA than the animal form.

Let's Standardize your skill bonuses.

Holy crap, we're so close to a total of +2 for all races for stats!

On standardizing animal and hybrid form stats: we're going to do this.

I'm still super wary about moving them all all being the same total bonuses, especially across stats boosts in all forms, natural attack and armor progressions, skills, AND feats. They feel way too cookie cutter that way. Would much rather have a few having more in one category and less in others.

Let me know if you'd like my spreadsheet.

Would be very interested, yes. For some reason I just don't really think like that. Literally never even occurred to me to put one together.

But will definitely help me decide how much I want to standardize within categories or try to rotate across categories still. :D

11
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: July 22, 2017, 11:21:41 PM »
Well let me know when you want me to work some more on Verold.

Whenever you have the time and patience   :love ;) :love ;) :love ;) :love

I assumed from your last post that you didn't want to work on the races anymore.   :???

Oh, just meant I wasn't gonna go back and forth on the stats any more, at least not before knowing if there's something else really lopsided in abilities that slipped through this far.  :lol

12
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: July 21, 2017, 10:06:07 PM »
Well let me know when you want me to work some more on Verold.

Whenever you have the time and patience   :love ;) :love ;) :love ;) :love

13
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: July 21, 2017, 08:44:10 AM »
Like I said, let me know when you're done fiddling and I'll do a more comprehensive comparison.   :p

Think I'll leave it here for now, though I did also update everything to actually match the chart  :lol

14
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: July 20, 2017, 08:23:20 AM »
I'm not sure what the fix is for the Fox Sorcerer skill points thing right now

Think I'll go with CL for now then. Will scale the same, but with slightly lower total for no skill cost.

Zeal is the racial feature I'd drop.

Think that works. I'll save changes or removing the others until comparing them to other abilities. ;)

Let me know when you're done fiddling with the races, I know I'm still going to want to see the gap between then shortened when you're done.  :p

With Ferret and Boar brought up to 0 total, and Crane losing Dex boost to drop to +4, that cuts the gap in half, but just shy of half of them are at +4, so the +0s still seem pretty behind... So let's move Bears up to +4 Str, drop the Wis penalty to Boars, up Ferrets to +4 Dex, and add -2 Str to Ravens. That leaves 3 +4s and the rest at +2. I almost think I want to raise at least one or two more up to +4, rather than bring them all down to +2  :lmao

But maybe that should depend on if the +4s are behind in abilities.

15
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: July 19, 2017, 08:14:25 AM »
I feel like you could use some input from other people so you can know I'm not being a crazy person.  I'll see if I can grab a person or two.

Firstly, more input is always welcome. Secondly, we both you are, indeed, a crazy person ;)

With the feats, I meant things like the Fox racial ability of "Spell Focus: Any illusion a Fox casts has a +2 to the DC to resist or overcome."  Why not just say that the Fox gains Spell Focus: Illusion as a bonus feat?

Ah! Because Spell Focus (Illusion) is only +1 and I wanted them to be stackable. Burning Trickster, the PrC Fox Sorcerers should be super good at, also has the actual feat as a prereq, forcing them to have a +3 total. It seems I forgot to change the placeholder name. Exactly the kind of reason I appreciate having more eyes again, especially from start...  :blush Feext and flavored lol


Boar Fighter 2 - this is definitely a case of "most melee boars will be fighters" rather than "most fighters will be boars". Strength bonus is one of the main early features of the Barbarian, why be a barbarian when you can get the strength bonus and all the fighter stuff at the same time?  (I know that you overhauled both classes but I'm not motivated enough to go look at classes when we're still dealing with races :P)

Good, but when/if? you get around to classes, I'd definitely like to know if you still feel that choice is so definite.  :D


Boar Ardent - I barely know anything about the ardent so I can't comment on the balance of this, I was just curious.

I don't know them super well either, so it might be really off  :lol

by the time the fox gains those class skills he'll either never put points into them or will have the make the hard decision to stop focusing on other skills so they can dump extra points into the new skills to max out ranks so they're not worthless.

Hm, the goal of turning them into class skills was to provide an option that they wouldn't be worthless, with only the spell's level as a bonus used untrained. Would maybe switching it to caster level and just dropping the class skill thing do it, perhaps? Kind of realizing now that even an 8 point range in the bonus from casting 1st vs 9th level spells isn't super impactful compared to skills invested if you chose to by the time you can cast the 9th level spells.


On Ferret Psionic Artificer, the Ectopic Form feat means that you're using the Complete Psionic nerf.  I say bleh.  That's not a balance nitpick, just bleh.

 :lmao

Though honestly didn't realize the feats necessitated the nerf lol


Crane: It's not the choice between the devotion feats.  Let me put it this way, we just discussed Raven.  Ravens get: minor skill bonuses, Knowledge bonuses, minor spell like abilities, and crafting bonuses.  Cranes get: moderate skill bonuses, more skill bonuses, treat evil=chaos for spells, bonus feats, and a second save against mind affecting spells.  Cranes get more useful racial features than any other race.  Cranes need to be toned down.

Kind of surprised to hear that, honestly. AiGO and Lawful Defender were added specifically to boost up the Crane because others felt it was so weak with the specific combination of skills and abilities (since other than Zeal and Spot, they are all non-combat abilities), and without much comment on it never thought those two boosted it that far up.

Would knocking off one of those two, between AiGO and Lawful Defender, bring it in line? Or do you really think the main problem with them is the stat boosts? I wouldn't be upset about taking Cha down to +2. Or maybe dropping the dex so both boosts are mental?

When I review things I don't write about the stuff that I don't have an issue with.

Same here, just wanted to verify with how much there all is  :lol


Off the top of my head, why would I want to be a Fox Favored Soul when I could be a Crane?  The stats are better, the racial abilities are way better.  Tiger Paladin vs Crane?  Crane.

Really? Even with the sub levels you'd take Crane over Fox for Favored Soul?

I know I'm harping on the crane, it's just the biggest offender to me.

Its also the only (non LA) one that clocks in at +6 total, with three +4 totals, Raven, Coyote, and Tiger. Two -2 totals are Boar and Ferret.

More than anything, this is making me reconsider having those two negatives (and go ahead and knock Crane down to +4 as well, though I'm still wondering about whether to drop Cha or Dex)





Hey, I'd forgotten about this.

Pretty sure everyone assumed I had too  :lmao

This is the up-to-date link, right?

- Wolf are outliers with their +1 LA, although if I remember correctly they were the special snowflake ones.

Both correct :D

- Coyote is another oddity as the only non-wolf race to not have any stat penalties.
- Python seems strange to have favored class monk with its Wisdom penalty.
- Not a problem, just an oddity, that only one core class is missing among favored classes, the cleric, and only one non-core class shows up, the hexblade.

All deliberately odd, though hopefully the first two are also not problematic? But I think the choice for Python predates my changes to Monk even though the sub level abilities do not. Definitely something to adjust if Tiger Monk still beats out Python Monk in the reach AoO/grappler role its supposed to support, especially if going for Hybrid Master (which is why Hybrid Form neutralizes the Wis penalty ;) )

Looks like the stat table doesn't actually match up to the actual stat adjustments the descriptions give. Boar has +4 Con, -4 Wis, -2 Cha, not +4 Con, -2 Int/Wis/Cha. Haven't gone through them all yet.

How did I miss that... hmmm... I think I'll just go ahead and make it -2 Wis/-2 Cha. Which leaves Ferret as only -2 race, so let's get that fixed... Removing their Con penalty looks good.

Okay, with animal and hybrid forms, there are tons of stat adjustments flying around. Any chance you could provide a table summarizing all of it?

That's a good idea. I should do that. Probably won't be for a minute, but I definitely should do that. That is a great idea.

A quick peek at classes says you're using modified versions of every class. At this point you've gotten rid of pretty much every standard I'm familiar with that I could quickly compare things against. In order to evaluate the balance of anything in this context, I'd have to go through everything to get a sense of the actual context as a whole.

Yes, it has steadily grown massively huge.

In short, it's more work than I'm willing to put in. Sorry.

I completely understand  :lol

Honestly, I am legitimately grateful for any pair of eyes even for a moment and appreciate the post; little details like the discrepancy on the Boar stat adjustments get noticed that way.  :love



OH! Wait! I just remembered why I have so many feat mimic abilities instead of granting them as bonus feats. I was being paranoid about Dark Chaos feat shuffling away racial traits. The concern does seem rather silly now though.

16
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: July 18, 2017, 06:50:00 AM »
The Clans

I assume that these races are meant to be balanced against each other and not against normal D&D races?

Very lol

Also, you've got a lot of "gain the effects of a feat".  Why not just grant bonus feats?

Any that don't actually grant the feat should be at least minor boosts over the feats, but enumerating the bonuses and listing that it filled prereqs took up less space than granting the feat and then explaining the differences. Also less to reference, and there's plenty of that ;) Though yea, the Boar Endurance ended up back closer than it originally was, with only negatives versus the actual feat.

- Why not just give them the Endurance feat and make a note that they can also sleep in heavy armor?

It also loses the thirst benefit, but that was probably just transposition error when adding stuff back in later. Changed.

- The boar Fighter 2 sub level feels a little strong.

Its supposed to be, to draw them to the class even though they have no damage output stat boost as a race. Do you think the whole package is strong ENOUGH that other fighters are worthless? Or just that most melee-centric Boars will prefer a Fighter base?

- Boar Ardent has one mantle with three lists.  Are they a single mantle or are they actually three mantles?

One mantle that gains access to the extra lists as you level up.

Fox Sorcerer, why not grant addition class skills at first level?

Mostly to prevent dipping, but also because that's when illusions grant bonuses to those skills. And just switching their places seemed more awkward than changing the class skills late, because the restricted spells known gimmick would be meaningless at level 5.

Ferret
 - Psionic Artificer makes me go bleh.  You're using the Complete Psionics nerf.

The nerf is not mentioned directly either way, but is assumed, because it is written. Really though, the 3 together, with permanent durations, plus the 3 feats, should still outweigh the homunculus given up for them, even if using the nerf.

Raven
 - Dedicated research, why such a massive bonus?

There was a reason for it, at one time, that I can't quite recall. I think I had it as a higher base boost initially then switched it to scaling. Looking at it now its probably a too much when combined with archivist?  :plotting

Changed to scale three times as slow, because I still want them to accumulate more of a boost over others as they grow stronger. Should I maybe drop the initial down to +2 as well?

- Raven Wizard, lingering spell is extremely powerful at low levels.  Having spells at first level last 7 rounds instead of 1 is a gamechanger.

Hrm, for some reason I recall someone mentioning how weak they thought it was at one point, but you're right, its crazy right at 1st level. Capping it to level as well.

Crane
 - The crane racial features feel more powerful in comparison to everyone else.  Devotion feats + All In Good Order (which would effect spells like Dictum and Holy Word) + Zeal is too much.

You really think the choice between those two specific devotion feats is that strong?



And before I get into the stats and the reasons for them, out of curiosity, was that a random grab of clans or just the only ones whose non stat abilities you noticed possible trouble with? I DO understand there's a whole, whole lot there  :lmao


Your stat adjustments are all over the place.  Not just for the base races (we've got everything from bonuses/penalties evening out to -2 total, +2 total, +4 total, and +6 for the Crane), but also with the animal and hybrid forms.

That is deliberate, though not standard. I know it makes balancing more difficult, but I very, very much wanted numeric benefits NOT to come to the same total across all Clans and forms. How effective those stat boosts are to each Clan should come from their other granted abilities and their favored/sub-level class boosts, which is also a deliberate emphasis to reinforce caste ideal of the world. Part of it also comes from basing animal/hybrid form boosts off of the actual animal stat blocks, then making hybrid forms slightly better, and then backpedaling anything that seemed tooooo extreme.

Are there any you notice that seem counter to that ideal? Any Clans that would clearly make a superior X over the sub levels of another, because of their stats. Or any possible splatbook classes that would benefit TOO much from one particular Clan's combo?

Conversely, are there any for which a particular set of stat boosts seem not a large enough boost in light of their other abilities and sub levels?

17
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: July 17, 2017, 06:32:12 AM »
I'll just start over then, it wouldn't be the first time I've done that with someone's homebrew.

So, where should I start?   :P

Clans were the beginning lol

18
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: July 16, 2017, 01:52:11 AM »
I opened a random one to see if I could comment.  :P

What do you want me to start with?

The exotic weapons are definitely the newest, but it looks like I did something with the PrCs. And the cosmology under history I definitely know doesn't exist on the forum copy, but otherwise I'm not entirely sure what parts are newer than the last time you might have looked at stuff  :lmao

19
Verold / Re: Verold Reviews/Questions/Discussions
« on: July 15, 2017, 03:53:44 AM »
There is, you have to grant commenting permissions though.

Or I could just comment here.  :P

;)

Also, totally saw you looking through Classes while I was playing around with new Warlock Pact ideas  :lol

20
Homebrew and House Rules (D&D) / Re: [3.5] Rewrite Compilation
« on: July 15, 2017, 01:54:39 AM »
Email went away, along with other aspects of the forum, for a while. As a result, there's been a change of management with the BGs passing control to myself and Prime and the mods.

Well, that explains some things at least lol

I figure I should at least mention the Arhosa base classes here and let the judges decide, although they're more replacements for the SRD classes rather than rewrites of them, generally combining a couple of them into one.

Yea, gonna agree there. Though a few are closer than others, they all seem to be pretty much new constructs for the archetype in question versus retoolings of the original classes. The reliance on multiple new mechanics shared across the classes is I think the biggest part of what sets them on that side of the line though? I'm really on the fence though, on some of the single class replacements especially, so if anyone wants to try and convince me, it won't be especially difficult  :lmao  :-\

Rest added though.

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