Level | Base Attack Bonus | Fort Save | Ref Save | Will Save | Special | Motes |
1st | +0 | +0 | +0 | +2 | Wild Talent, Natural Attunement, Elemental Motes, Maelstrom | 3 |
2nd | +1 | +0 | +0 | +3 | Sense Elements, Enhance Maelstrom 1/encounter | 4 |
3rd | +2 | +1 | +1 | +3 | 1st Circle Weaves | 5 |
4th | +3 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Attuned Resistance | 6 |
5th | +3 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Maelstrom (1 Mote), Core Control | 7 |
6th | +4 | +2 | +2 | +5 | Enhance Maelstrom 2/encounter | 8 |
7th | +5 | +2 | +2 | +5 | 2nd Circle Weaves | 9 |
8th | +6/+1 | +2 | +2 | +6 | 10 | |
9th | +6/+1 | +3 | +3 | +6 | Core Command | 11 |
10th | +7/+2 | +3 | +3 | +7 | Maelstrom (2 Motes), Enhance Maelstrom 3/encounter | 12 |
11th | +8/+3 | +3 | +3 | +7 | 3rd Circle Weaves | 13 |
12th | +9/+4 | +4 | +4 | +8 | Attuned Immunity | 14 |
13th | +9/+4 | +4 | +4 | +8 | Greater Control | 15 |
14th | +10/+5 | +4 | +4 | +9 | Enhance Maelstrom 4/encouter | 16 |
15th | +11/+6/+1 | +5 | +5 | +9 | Maelstrom (3 Motes), 4th Circle Weaves | 17 |
16th | +12/+7/+2 | +5 | +5 | +10 | 18 | |
17th | +12/+7/+2 | +5 | +5 | +10 | Core Contingency | 19 |
18th | +13/+8/+3 | +6 | +6 | +11 | Enhance Maelstrom 5/encounter | 20 |
19th | +14/+9/+4 | +6 | +6 | +11 | 5th Circle Weaves | 21 |
20th | +15/+10/+5 | +6 | +6 | +12 | Elemental Apotheosis | 22 |
Perhaps have the abilities work a bit like incarnum? So, creating the effect requires the motes, then you have a set pool of points you can assign? So, making a flamthrower takes 1 fire mote and 1 air mote, then you add points to make it deal more damage/fill an area...No power point pools are needed, we can work with just motes for this. Firstly, you should gain 1 + (primary stat modifier) motes at first level, and an additional mote every other level (3rd, 5th, etc), this should allow for some breathing room with the mote's chosen element (more on this in a moment). Then what we do is limit the number of motes you may use on any one ability to 1 + 1/2 class level (minimum 1). This way you pay the minimum mote cost for each element to activate the ability, and may add more motes (up to this limit) to empower the ability once active. The extra motes can be of any element, but you must have the correct types for activation cost (so flight could be 2 Air & 1 Fire, but you could add any additional mote to add +10ft to your flight speed for instance). If we create the abilities well, we can make them scale this way, therefore reducing the number of total abilities without gimping options or railroading the build.
edit: thought about it... so, how about let all elements be open at all levels, but have scaling bonuses based on what motes you chose. going pure limits options, but each of the 4 will have decent trees of bonuses to make it worth while.OK, I see what you're getting at there. How about this:
also, perhapce instead of wind, air, water, fire... go electrical, fire, acid, sonic, cold, force, and physical(bludgioning, piercing, and slashing). Effectively having direct control over D&D's energies.Sonic and Force aren't elements, and are both more potent than elemental damage types, because few things have a way of resisting them effectively, or indeed at all. I have considered both this and the physical damages though, and had a bit of a brainwave. Each element has an ability affinity, an energy type and a physical type attached to it as follows:
Also, how about abilities have affinities, oppositions, and mote costs? so, flight has an afinity for sonic, fire, and force, oposed physical and acid, with a mote cost of 3. motes of an abilaties affinity can be used at cost, while off affinitys are used 1.5 to 1, and opposed cost double. so flight could be had for 3 fire, 5 cold, or 6 acid.Nice idea, but it would get crazy complicated for both use and balance this way. How about we make it more simple, with a similar feel but less book-keeping. You cannot spontaneously convert an opposed element, so if you choose Air as your favoured element, then you can't spontaneously convert Earth motes into Air motes. Optionally, at a higher level (level 12-16 somewhere would make some sense I think) you might consider introducing a class feature which allows conversion at 2:1 ratio for opposed elements..?
Hrrrrm.....
Allow me to ramble and I may be able to get this right!
No power point pools are needed, we can work with just motes for this. Firstly, you should gain 1 + (primary stat modifier) motes at first level, and an additional mote every other level (3rd, 5th, etc), this should allow for some breathing room with the mote's chosen element (more on this in a moment). Then what we do is limit the number of motes you may use on any one ability to 1 + 1/2 class level (minimum 1). This way you pay the minimum mote cost for each element to activate the ability, and may add more motes (up to this limit) to empower the ability once active. The extra motes can be of any element, but you must have the correct types for activation cost (so flight could be 2 Air & 1 Fire, but you could add any additional mote to add +10ft to your flight speed for instance). If we create the abilities well, we can make them scale this way, therefore reducing the number of total abilities without gimping options or railroading the build.
Sonic and Force aren't elements, and are both more potent than elemental damage types, because few things have a way of resisting them effectively, or indeed at all. I have considered both this and the physical damages though, and had a bit of a brainwave. Each element has an ability affinity, an energy type and a physical type attached to it as follows:
Air (movement) - Electricity, piercing
Earth (defence) - Acid, bludgeoning
Fire (offence) - Fire (duh!), slashing
Water (perception) - Cold, subdual
Sonic effects require at least 1 mote each of any 3 elements (for a minimum of 4th level)
Force requires at least 2 motes each of any 3 elements (for a minimum of 10th level)
Nice idea, but it would get crazy complicated for both use and balance this way. How about we make it more simple, with a similar feel but less book-keeping. You cannot spontaneously convert an opposed element, so if you choose Air as your favoured element, then you can't spontaneously convert Earth motes into Air motes. Optionally, at a higher level (level 12-16 somewhere would make some sense I think) you might consider introducing a class feature which allows conversion at 2:1 ratio for opposed elements..?
Level | Base Attack Bonus | Fort Save | Ref Save | Will Save | Special | Motes |
1st | +0 | +0 | +0 | +2 | Wild Talent, Natural Attunement, Elemental Motes, Maelstrom | 3 |
2nd | +1 | +0 | +0 | +3 | Sense Elements, Enhance Maelstrom 1/encounter | 4 |
3rd | +2 | +1 | +1 | +3 | 1st Circle Weaves | 5 |
4th | +3 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Attuned Resistance | 6 |
5th | +3 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Maelstrom (1 Mote), Core Control | 7 |
6th | +4 | +2 | +2 | +5 | Enhance Maelstrom 2/encounter | 8 |
7th | +5 | +2 | +2 | +5 | 2nd Circle Weaves | 9 |
8th | +6/+1 | +2 | +2 | +6 | 10 | |
9th | +6/+1 | +3 | +3 | +6 | Core Command | 11 |
10th | +7/+2 | +3 | +3 | +7 | Maelstrom (2 Motes), Enhance Maelstrom 3/encounter | 12 |
11th | +8/+3 | +3 | +3 | +7 | 3rd Circle Weaves | 13 |
12th | +9/+4 | +4 | +4 | +8 | Attuned Immunity | 14 |
13th | +9/+4 | +4 | +4 | +8 | Greater Control | 15 |
14th | +10/+5 | +4 | +4 | +9 | Enhance Maelstrom 4/encouter | 16 |
15th | +11/+6/+1 | +5 | +5 | +9 | Maelstrom (3 Motes), 4th Circle Weaves | 17 |
16th | +12/+7/+2 | +5 | +5 | +10 | 18 | |
17th | +12/+7/+2 | +5 | +5 | +10 | Core Contingency | 19 |
18th | +13/+8/+3 | +6 | +6 | +11 | Enhance Maelstrom 5/encounter | 20 |
19th | +14/+9/+4 | +6 | +6 | +11 | 5th Circle Weaves | 21 |
20th | +15/+10/+5 | +6 | +6 | +12 | Elemental Apotheosis | 22 |
Air - Flight (starts outs not so great, gets better), Like The Wind (speed increases like a barbarian)I shall be adding these in as and when a rough power scale emerges. Once that's done, and we have an idea of how often to grant access to a new 'circle' of powers we can bulk out the Mote powers themselves.
Earth - Tremorsense (starts at 10ft, gets better quite fast), Earthglide (as per the elemental ability, give or take)
Fire - Attack and damage bonus (+1 / 4 class levels or thereabouts), Body Aflame (fire armour with perks, shall elaborate later)
Water - AC and Reflex bonus (probably +1 / 4 class levels, will follow same progression as Fire), Psychic Tsunami (very cool mass debuff, will elaborate a lot later!)
Maelstrom deals 0 damage at level 1. It's rather low damage in general. Though, since the class is unfinished, I assume that other as-yet-unmentioned abilities will improve it.I think it is meant to be an attack you can use more then once with a high BAB, I could be wrong.
What type of damage does the Maelstrom deal? It says that it's damage of your attuned element, but that makes no sense since only Fire is a damage type, not Air, Earth, or Water.