Sliver Queen

[FireInTheSky]

I love you. Thank you for this.

I'm glad you like it! What do you think of the class itself?

Clot Sliver's regeneration should be bypassed by Fire or Acid, shouldn't it? I can't think of anything that deals both fire and acid damage at once. Or is that just how regeneration is phrased? Can't recall.

Regeneration (Ex)
Fire and acid deal normal damage to a troll. If a troll loses a limb or body part, the lost portion regrows in 3d6 minutes. The creature can reattach the severed member instantly by holding it to the stump.

Obviously my version is worded differently, but I wouldn't have thought to read it as needing to be both fire and acid. But I guess if someone could read it that way (as you did), I should change it to 'or'.

Gemhide Sliver should probably be Opaline Sliver instead - shroud seems more SR-y than [T]: Add mana does.

Okey doke. Need a new ability for Gemhide Sliver though. Actually, nevermind, I got it.

Quilled Sliver could grant a ranged natural attack (perhaps 1d6 damage, 30' range? Thrown spines?)

Ja, I like it. (Thanks to sirp for the copypasta target! )

Fungus Sliver could grant temp HP every time you deal damage to an enemy.

Well, I've already got Vampiric Sliver for that...

Basal Sliver could have a "Sacrifice a swarm: Heal another swarm to full / resurrect a swarm that died this encounter" effect. (Because it coincidentally lets you sac for the amount of mana it takes to spawn a sliver); alternatively, this could be Darkheart Sliver (what with the sac-for-lifegain mechanic)

I'm hesitant to make any abilities which require sacrificing.

Pulmonic could grant better fly maneuverability as well as having some sort of time-delay resurrection of swarms; perhaps after 3 rounds, a swarm is resurrected with very low HP (1/HD, maybe?)

Better flight (maneuverability) is good. Not sure about the resurrection though. It kinda conflicts with the idea of the Queen going crazy when one of the swarms dies.

Sliversmith isn't a sliver. If anything, it would probably be a feat or a magic item. >n> Doesn't make sense to have the queen spawn a thing that is designed to spawn things originally designed to usurp the queen.

Hmm... I haz an idea

EDIT: Check out the new magic item! /EDIT

Spinneret Sliver could grant reach?

Ja, I like it.

[Gazzien]

I love you. Thank you for this.

I'm glad you like it! What do you think of the class itself?

Dunno. I don't like that it doesn't ever get better at using the swarms (more actions, I mean), but it's an interesting premise. (Except at the capstone, of course, but I don't think I've ever been within rock-throwing distance of a game that actually got to 20 or higher; and even then it seems abrupt.)

Also, you're missing a lot of stats for the Sliver Swarms themselves. Like size (Assuming slivers are medium, but a [Mob] can't be medium), AC, attacks and saves. So it's kinda unplayable at the moment (though, it being a WIP, I can understand why)

Gemhide Sliver should probably be Opaline Sliver instead - shroud seems more SR-y than [T]: Add mana does.

Okey doke. Need a new ability for Gemhide Sliver though. Actually, nevermind, I got it.

... I guess DR works. Not sure what would count as mana after all xD

Fungus Sliver could grant temp HP every time you deal damage to an enemy.

Well, I've already got Vampiric Sliver for that...

... Completely missed that. Hm, perhaps a Strength Of My Enemy-esque effect, then? Take damage, get some buffs?

Basal Sliver could have a "Sacrifice a swarm: Heal another swarm to full / resurrect a swarm that died this encounter" effect. (Because it coincidentally lets you sac for the amount of mana it takes to spawn a sliver); alternatively, this could be Darkheart Sliver (what with the sac-for-lifegain mechanic)

I'm hesitant to make any abilities which require sacrificing.

Take X damage, grant X temp HP to the Sliver Queen? Makes your swarms more fragile, to protect yourself... I really don't know what else seems black-y, other than sacrifice, considering it was a sac mechanic for black mana xD

Pulmonic could grant better fly maneuverability as well as having some sort of time-delay resurrection of swarms; perhaps after 3 rounds, a swarm is resurrected with very low HP (1/HD, maybe?)

Better flight (maneuverability) is good. Not sure about the resurrection though. It kinda conflicts with the idea of the Queen going crazy when one of the swarms dies.

Mn, I hadn't thought of that. "The effects granted by a destroyed Sliver Swarm persist for X round(s) after its death"? Reminiscent of the returning mechanic, but doesn't rez or otherwise impact things.

Sliversmith isn't a sliver. If anything, it would probably be a feat or a magic item. >n> Doesn't make sense to have the queen spawn a thing that is designed to spawn things originally designed to usurp the queen.

Hmm... I haz an idea
EDIT: Check out the new magic item! /EDIT

That looks very nice.

[oslecamo]

Taking a first glance, the basic concept looks fine, but several of the abilities easily abuseable. In particular the SLA ones.

Hibernation allowing you to spam Sleep will completely dominate combat at early levels. It's like a druid, if your animal companion could throw save-or-dies.

Transparent Sliver+Invisiility: At 6th level you have 6 swarms plus the Queen all invisible all the time until they attack, and then they have all mirror images cast previously, yeaahhh, still curbstomping most opposition.

Telekinetic: At 11 th level you're chain-casting 12 telekinesis in a single turn. There will be no survivors unless you're attacking a god or something, and you still have 10 other sliver abilities to pick from.

There are reasons why I'm strongly against at-will SLAs. This is an excellent example of why. Throwing a dozen save-or-dies every turn is insane no matter how you look at it, and many utility spells become OP when you can keep them up in a small army all the time.

[FireInTheSky]

Taking a first glance, the basic concept looks fine, but several of the abilities easily abuseable. In particular the SLA ones.

Obviously, nothing is set in stone. I'm certainly open to changes.

Hibernation allowing you to spam Sleep will completely dominate combat at early levels. It's like a druid, if your animal companion could throw save-or-dies.

Does once every 4 rounds count as spamming? I could change it to 1/encounter instead?

Transparent Sliver+Invisiility: At 6th level you have 6 swarms plus the Queen all invisible all the time until they attack, and then they have all mirror images cast previously, yeaahhh, still curbstomping most opposition.

I'll put in something to say that if any of the queen or her slivers attacks, then all of them lose the invisibility. Will that help?

Telekinetic: At 11 th level you're chain-casting 12 telekinesis in a single turn. There will be no survivors unless you're attacking a god or something, and you still have 10 other sliver abilities to pick from.

How do you get 12 TKs? You still only have one set of actions per turn (until 20th, but even at that point, it's once per encounter. Also, it's 20th level - who cares? )

There are reasons why I'm strongly against at-will SLAs. This is an excellent example of why. Throwing a dozen save-or-dies every turn is insane no matter how you look at it, and many utility spells become OP when you can keep them up in a small army all the time.

Again, only one set of actions per turn. I could change everything to something like 1/x rounds, or 1/encounter... Or, what about 1/encounter/xHD?

[oslecamo]

Hibernation allowing you to spam Sleep will completely dominate combat at early levels. It's like a druid, if your animal companion could throw save-or-dies.

Does once every 4 rounds count as spamming? I could change it to 1/encounter instead?

Sleep ends encounters at early levels. And the sliver queen can use it at every encounter. Not even an enchantment-specialized wizard can hope to keep up with that, and the wizard doesn't come with a meat shield.

Transparent Sliver+Invisiility: At 6th level you have 6 swarms plus the Queen all invisible all the time until they attack, and then they have all mirror images cast previously, yeaahhh, still curbstomping most opposition.

I'll put in something to say that if any of the queen or her slivers attacks, then all of them lose the invisibility. Will that help?

A bit, but it doesn't solve the mirror image spam.

Telekinetic: At 11 th level you're chain-casting 12 telekinesis in a single turn. There will be no survivors unless you're attacking a god or something, and you still have 10 other sliver abilities to pick from.

How do you get 12 TKs? You still only have one set of actions per turn (until 20th, but even at that point, it's once per encounter.

Derp, my bad, completely missed that clause.

Also, it's 20th level - who cares? )

Considering that I've made classes up to 55 levels long? I care. Being 1/encounter doesn't matter when you end the encounter right there by taking 20 actions at once (aka over double than an empowered maximized time stop)

Actually, there's Synchronous Sliver giving actions to the swarm at level 16, so super nuke spam is still gonna kick around before the wizard can even cast time stop.

There are reasons why I'm strongly against at-will SLAs. This is an excellent example of why. Throwing a dozen save-or-dies every turn is insane no matter how you look at it, and many utility spells become OP when you can keep them up in a small army all the time.

Again, only one set of actions per turn. I could change everything to something like 1/x rounds, or 1/encounter... Or, what about 1/encounter/xHD?

Honestly, I would much rather have the SLA slivers being x/day. Right now this just seems like a warlock on steroids. Pick some powerful SLAs to nuke the opposition and then the rest of the swarms pick defensive stuff to play meat shield. Which just seems wrong for a monster that's supposed to be pseudo zerg-rush when the best strategy is to hang back throwing nukes.

Another thing that you may want to do is limit how many of the upper abilities you can pick, otherwise the class "explodes" every 5 levels when you swap all of the weaker abilities by much stronger ones while also gaining more swarms.

[FireInTheSky]

Hibernation allowing you to spam Sleep will completely dominate combat at early levels. It's like a druid, if your animal companion could throw save-or-dies.

Does once every 4 rounds count as spamming? I could change it to 1/encounter instead?

Sleep ends encounters at early levels. And the sliver queen can use it at every encounter. Not even an enchantment-specialized wizard can hope to keep up with that, and the wizard doesn't come with a meat shield.

Transparent Sliver+Invisiility: At 6th level you have 6 swarms plus the Queen all invisible all the time until they attack, and then they have all mirror images cast previously, yeaahhh, still curbstomping most opposition.

I'll put in something to say that if any of the queen or her slivers attacks, then all of them lose the invisibility. Will that help?

A bit, but it doesn't solve the mirror image spam.

Alright, I think I'm gonna change the following SLAs to 1/day/Queen's HD:

• Crypt Sliver (Doom)
• Crystalline Sliver (Color Spray)
• Hibernation Sliver (Sleep)
• Mesmeric Sliver (Hypnotic Pattern)

I'm also gonna change Mindwhip Sliver (Brain Lock) and Two-Headed Sliver (Mirror Image) to 1/encounter.

Also, it's 20th level - who cares? :P)

Considering that I've made classes up to 55 levels long? I care. Being 1/encounter doesn't matter when you end the encounter right there by taking 20 actions at once (aka over double than an empowered maximized time stop):tongue

Actually, there's Synchronous Sliver giving actions to the swarm at level 16, so super nuke spam is still gonna kick around before the wizard can even cast time stop.

I'll change the capstone to 1/day, so that you can't do it every encounter.

Another thing that you may want to do is limit how many of the upper abilities you can pick, otherwise the class "explodes" every 5 levels when you swap all of the weaker abilities by much stronger ones while also gaining more swarms.

Oh. I had meant it to be like invocations in that you can only change abilities to one of an equal or lesser value, but I guess I didn't make that clear.



EDIT: Also, changed Transparent Sliver (which wasn't a real magic card) to Shadow Sliver. Already had Shadow Sliver. However that doesn't change the following: Several new sets have come out in the last two years, so I'll have to update the lists.

EDIT2: Updated the lists to include (I think) all current slivers. Gave abilities to:

• Battle Sliver
• Blur Sliver
• Bonescythe Sliver
• Groundshaker Sliver
• Sentinel Sliver
• Sliver Hivelord

EDIT3:

• Steelform Sliver got Gemhide Sliver's ability
• Gemhide Sliver got Ward Sliver's ability
• Ward Sliver got a new ability
• Megantic Sliver

[oslecamo]

Alright, I think I'm gonna change the following SLAs to 1/day/Queen's HD:

• Crypt Sliver (Doom)
• Crystalline Sliver (Color Spray)
• Hibernation Sliver (Sleep)
• Mesmeric Sliver (Hypnotic Pattern)

I'm also gonna change Mindwhip Sliver (Brain Lock) and Two-Headed Sliver (Mirror Image) to 1/encounter.

Sounds better.

Also, it's 20th level - who cares? :P)

Considering that I've made classes up to 55 levels long? I care. Being 1/encounter doesn't matter when you end the encounter right there by taking 20 actions at once (aka over double than an empowered maximized time stop):tongue

Actually, there's Synchronous Sliver giving actions to the swarm at level 16, so super nuke spam is still gonna kick around before the wizard can even cast time stop.

I'll change the capstone to 1/day, so that you can't do it every encounter.

Nice, but Synchronous Sliver is still too good even with the new nerfed version. What if they could only use the extra actions for basic claw attacks? Even with the nukes nerfs, there's other spammable stuff like the breath weapon.

EDIT: Also, changed Transparent Sliver (which wasn't a real magic card) to Shadow Sliver. Already had Shadow Sliver. However that doesn't change the following: Several new sets have come out in the last two years, so I'll have to update the lists.

EDIT2: Updated the lists to include (I think) all current slivers. Gave abilities to:

• Battle Sliver
• Blur Sliver
• Bonescythe Sliver
• Groundshaker Sliver
• Sentinel Sliver
• Sliver Hivelord

EDIT3:

• Steelform Sliver got Gemhide Sliver's ability
• Gemhide Sliver got Ward Sliver's ability
• Ward Sliver got a new ability
• Megantic Sliver

At a glance of the new ones, Blur Silver doesn't really looks good enough without need of a scaling miss chance.

[FireInTheSky]

I finally got around to writing out Brood Sliver (the main mechanic). How does it look?

Also, it's 20th level - who cares? )

Considering that I've made classes up to 55 levels long? I care. Being 1/encounter doesn't matter when you end the encounter right there by taking 20 actions at once (aka over double than an empowered maximized time stop)

Actually, there's Synchronous Sliver giving actions to the swarm at level 16, so super nuke spam is still gonna kick around before the wizard can even cast time stop.

I'll change the capstone to 1/day, so that you can't do it every encounter.

Nice, but Synchronous Sliver is still too good even with the new nerfed version. What if they could only use the extra actions for basic claw attacks? Even with the nukes nerfs, there's other spammable stuff like the breath weapon.

I'll put in something clarifying that it's still only a single action for the queen to dole out, not every sliver getting an action. Also, I'll make it not stack with Sliver Legion. Better?

At a glance of the new ones, Blur Silver doesn't really looks good enough without need of a scaling miss chance.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that it's too good even without the scaling? Or is it the opposite - that, for an advanced ability (available at 11th level), the initial benefit should be better? Or something else entirely?

[oslecamo]

I'll put in something clarifying that it's still only a single action for the queen to dole out, not every sliver getting an action. Also, I'll make it not stack with Sliver Legion. Better?

Yes, thanks.

At a glance of the new ones, Blur Silver doesn't really looks good enough without need of a scaling miss chance.

I'm not sure I understand. Are you saying that it's too good even without the scaling? Or is it the opposite - that, for an advanced ability (available at 11th level), the initial benefit should be better? Or something else entirely?

That came out really badly worded out of my part. I meant that basic Blur+Initiative bonus is good enough by itself (assuming all the Slivers get blurred), no need for the extra scaling. Otherwise you can do something really silly at higher levels like 17 Blur silvers for 100% miss chance and +17 Initiative. Actually forgot that only a fraction of your slivers can pick Advanced, so it may be ok with the scaling option after all.

[FireInTheSky]

Gain an additional Standard, Move, or Swift action each round. The same extra action may not be used in consecutive rounds. This additional action is only usable by the Queen, though she may use it to act through a single swarm, as normal. This ability cannot be used in conjunction with the Sliver Legion ability. This ability does not stack.

Better?

EDIT: I'm at a bit of a loss with stat-ing the Sliver Swarms.

(click to show/hide)

Technically, [Swarm] is tiny or smaller, and [Mob] is large or larger. Tiny was definitely too small for a group of slivers, and large seems too big. Medium feels about right, which means adapting either way. Mob felt a little easier to adapt, since it's only one step away instead of two for swarm, but I could be convinced otherwise.

One piece of the problem is that so many stats depend on the Queen's stats, which - obviously - are mutable. Another is that a couple things don't matter so much (Skills? Feats?) since the swarms don't get actions of their own. Osle, any suggestions?

[oslecamo]

Gain an additional Standard, Move, or Swift action each round. The same extra action may not be used in consecutive rounds. This additional action is only usable by the Queen, though she may use it to act through a single swarm, as normal. This ability cannot be used in conjunction with the Sliver Legion ability. This ability does not stack.

Better?

Yes, nice wording now.

EDIT: I'm at a bit of a loss with stat-ing the Sliver Swarms.

(click to show/hide)

Technically, [Swarm] is tiny or smaller, and [Mob] is large or larger. Tiny was definitely too small for a group of slivers, and large seems too big. Medium feels about right, which means adapting either way. Mob felt a little easier to adapt, since it's only one step away instead of two for swarm, but I could be convinced otherwise.

One piece of the problem is that so many stats depend on the Queen's stats, which - obviously - are mutable. Another is that a couple things don't matter so much (Skills? Feats?) since the swarms don't get actions of their own. Osle, any suggestions?

I think you may be confusing something here. My Mob rules can be used with medium and small creatures. If you just want the sliver swarm to fill a 5x5 square it's just a matter of saying it fills less size (although at that point why don't just make them individual slivers?)

As for stats you could have a fixed progression just dependant on queen level/HD, and make them have no feats/skills at all, since you're going with the mindless drones approach anyway.