Talk:Planar Shaman (3.5e Class)

Just another idea to reduce some of the overpoweredness. Remove the dual-wield totemic weapons. Make only one weapon a totemic weapon. They can still dual-wield, but not two of the aforementioend weapons. Given this is just my opinion, but I think having two totemic weapons is way too powerful. -- Irykyl 08:24, 21 March 2012 (MDT)

Perhaps, I'm trying to make the Totemic Weapons as much of a boon as they can be a bane. If disarmed or a weapon sundered to the point of destruction, the Shaman would lose alot of power if even one weapon is destroyed. Unlike a Soulknife, the Shaman cannot just willfully create another weapon on demand. Also the extreme ranged restrictions also mitigate the overall power of the class as it cannot perform at ranged combat very well. --Eknye 08:42, 21 March 2012 (MDT)

Honestly dual totemic weapons aren't that much of an issue just reduce both's bonus by one similar to the soulknife. Tivanir 08:55, 21 March 2012 (MDT)

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I find the power increases to be off unless I am reading it wrong. This character gains a much higher damage capability than a normal fighter very quickly and continues to grow by leaps and bounds. In addition to that their magic weapons cost them nothing freeing up 400k 200k of equivalent gear costs which makes them that much stronger. Besides anyone into custom magic items can quickly make this class much much higher than a fighter for less than the 400k 200k, so I think it is unwieldly and needs a power reduction. Tivanir 14:07, 16 March 2012 (MDT)

Just to Illustrate my point a bit how it reads is at level 20 you can make the following weapon x2 BattleAxe +5 Acid (4d8), frost (d8), fire(d8) and lightning (d8) plus a burst that would add 2d12 on a crit. to cancel out the lower BAB slap him a girdle of divine power (BAB equals level, +hp and +6 str) and congrats you are doing a ton more than a fighter for base. All of that is just two of the abilities figured in it doesn't even go into all the other things out there or all the other feats you can use to up your damage output (over-sized two weapon fighting, monkey grip etc etc etc.)

That is mildly incorrect. At 20th level you can have 2 +5 Battle axes, each with +4 enhancement for Special qualities. So you could have all 4 elements, but you could not have all 4 elements with one of them having a burst quality. But either way your point does ring true with these being free and being quite powerful (being d8's as well as the inclusion of Planar Mastery and Shamanistic Rage, not to mention the Special Abilities). I'll have to figure something out to apply more balance. --Eknye 20:14, 16 March 2012 (EST)

I had a question about your mention of the "custom magic items." Are you referring to using magic items as the Totem Weapon? There is a disclaimer in the creation of a Totem Weapon stating that the process strips the weapon of any previous enhancement. As for the overall power, I see your point. Was trying to implement enough downsides to certain aspects of the class to mitigate the overall power. For example, the bonuses or enhancements the class can apply to the weapons are strictly elemental, and it requires several hours to change them out, therefore, there would be no chance of having a "swiss army knife" of elemental damage. I can see reducing the initial elemental damage down to d6, to mirror normal element damage, however, I feel the Planar Mastery part is a crucial addition to the class, making it "elite" in the elemental damage. I have no intention of removing it since it would remove the core of the class. Wouldn't want to turn the class into a fighter with a standard torch now. That and the class has extremely limited ranged capabilities, thus limiting the class to strictly melee combat, which could be a huge disadvantage. --Eknye 23:14, 16 March 2012 (EST)

No I meant the DMG section on custom magic item creation, it allows you to pick up abilities like divine power (which most people view as under-rated until you point out it boosts BAB for a bit of money). To balance the elemental power I would suggest a slight change to the elemental damage increase; if it increases the weapons elemental damage by d8 also increase the enhancement bonus by 1. It being a d8 is not as problematic as the plus 3 additional dice of damage you will have over everyone for melee combat. Stronger elemental damge is a very interesting option, it is just on top of all the other damage it becomes excessive. Tivanir 07:26, 17 March 2012 (MDT)

Ah, I see your point. I had a thought on how to slow down the ramp-up of the elemental damage. Add in an additional modifier to the blessing of the elements. The modifier would increase the cost of adding an element to a weapon by one for each element type already on the weapon. Therefore, your second element on a weapon would cost 2, your third 3, and so forth. So at level 20, with only 4 points to buy with, you could have 2 elements per weapon, with one of them burst, as opposed to all four elements per weapon with no bursts.) Further modifying the elements with burst/blast/anything else I come up with to add options so the risk of having nothing to spend point on, will cost the same no matter what element number it was.

Prospects for additional modifier buys: Overcharge (cost +1), makes an element deal +2 damage (Can be selected multiple times). Lingering Element (+3 or +4), Whenever you deal elemental damage of the selected type with this weapon, it deals half that damage at the start of next round (sounds too complicated, I will have to reword. Perhaps I can reduce the cost to +2 but only make the damage work off burst/blast qualities). --Eknye 10:25, 17 March 2012 (EST)

What if you limited the elemental burst to a certain times a day? That would be useful and at the same time limit the potential overpowering. -- Irykyl 10:04, 19 March 2012 (MDT)

If by Burst you are referring to the special weapon quality that increases damage on critical hit, I don't think that would work or make sense. Besides that having a burst property that you could only use a few times per day but only on critical hit would seem like a waste of Enhancement Bonus Value (EBV). I believe making additional element types on a weapon cost progressively more and EBV will be a sufficient enough damper on how quickly the class gains power. At the same time it makes some of the special qualities more desirable. For instance, 3 Bursts are better than a Blast quality, but cost the same EBV. 3 bursts deal 3d6 element damage (of 3 different types) and deal 3d10 (on a x2 weapon) with a critical; Burst deals 3d6 of 1 element type, and 3d6 (x2 weapon) on a critical hit. In this format, 3 Bursts would cost you +9 EBV, instead of +6 for a blessing with burst.

Now I know that increasing additional elements EBV seems to thwart the class on available power. The things that makes the scaling EBV more balanced is the fact that Planar Mastery adds damage to each elemental die of damage you deal, so the more element types you have the greater Planar Mastery benefits you. Also, the fact that each blessing is 1d8 instead of 1d6. You also have to include the Special Abilities that can replace feats. Planar lash is an excellent example as it gives you the ability to belt out a serious elemental attack every so often that does very strong damage. Eknye 14:45, 20 March 2012 (MDT)

I have been mulling over the Idea of making the Totem Weapons reflect Legacy weapons in a small fashion. With legacy weapons you have to complete some task and spend a deal of money to unlock tiers of progression with the weapon. I can make totem weapons as a whole follow a similar path, more so the gold costs rather than a quest. If you change your weapons for something else, there will not be any added cost, therefore unlocking a tier for Totem Weapons will be a class permanent thing. If memory serves me correctly there is a level 5, 11 and 16-17 quest for legacy weapons, I could either mirror this or come up with some other rule, like each time the weapons gain Special quality enhancements. --Eknye 14:52, 20 March 2012 (MDT)

Honestly the soulknife from complete psionsics is probably closest to imbuing personal weapons class might want to give it a look. Tivanir 15:19, 20 March 2012 (MDT)

That was actually the basis of the progression of how the Planar Shaman's Totem Weapons gained power (mirrors it in basic progression) Eknye 17:57, 20 March 2012 (MDT)

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Incorporated the reduced enhancement bonus to double Totem Weapons. Also added in a small new ability, Special Totem Making, which allows the Shaman to fulfill a stronger support role, even if really limited. --Eknye 10:24, 21 March 2012 (MDT)

Going to create a variant of this with a slightly different setup. Tivanir 17:27, 29 March 2012 (MDT)

What is it going to be called? Just so I can see what you did. Still working on balancing this class out, and if you have been watching this thread, you probably have seen my efforts in action, lol --Eknye 18:26, 29 March 2012 (MDT)

It is Planar Shaman, Variant (3.5e class). I am using this one as a setup and modifying it from there. Tivanir 18:53, 29 March 2012 (MDT)