Talk:Soulfire Adept (3.5e Class)
Balancing Issues
Overpowered as hell: Most of the basic abilities of this class are signature abilities of the monk and barbarian classes. Essentially, this class has all the benefits of a monk and a barbarian with almost none of the drawbacks. Like giving it most of the key benefits of a the most powerful class isn't enough, you've thrown in a full BAB, D12 hit dice, and rage abilities. It feels like every level of soulfire adept is giving a level in monk and in barbarian. My first piece of advice? Lose one.
Survivability: D12 hit dice, 3 different CHA- and CON-based AC bonuses plus an AC progression that also apply to touch attacks, 2 good saving throws, a healing touch, uncanny dodge, immunity to massive damage death/poison/disease, frenzy options... do you see where this is going? Even if this class was entirely focused on staying alive to the exclusion of dealing damage, I would be hesitant to consider this balanced. Add in the fact that the soulfire adept is a heavy damage class, this is just insane. Lose half of these benefits, especially in the AC bonus department, and it will be within reason.
Damage: Full BAB, monk unarmed damage progression, and frenzy is already a powerful combination. Once you get into all the soul-based abilities like over-soul, things get absurd. That being said, I love over-soul and all the other soul abilities. They have a lot of flavor to them. This class is honestly pretty good on damage when only considering the soul abilities. Again, lose either the barbarian stuff or the monk stuff and water down the one you keep. Why use the monk damage progression? Consider using something unique instead. Rather than making actual unarmed attacks, perhaps the soulfire adept actually slashes at people with arcs of their very soul? Maybe use d4s for these attacks. Also ask yourself, why would people ever need to play conservatively when they have soulfire burst backed by d12 hit dice and monk-level melee attacks to fall back on? I understand this character is supposed to be all out attack, but where is the double-edged sword of doing that?
Soulfire burst: A lot of damage for little risk. At level 20, this is a twice a round 20d6 in a 20-foot radius for 5 hp each, or going all out 120 damage in a 40-foot radius for 20 hp. I've played d12 hit dice characters. Even when you get the maximize at level 14, with d12 hit dice and a big constitution mod, 20 hp is nothing. Cut the dice progression, maybe 1 extra die every 2 levels; 2 dice every 3 levels would be pushing it. Lose the upgrade to d6s. Either lose the metamagic options or make them truly costly. Dropping the class hit dice to d6 or d8 would serve to balance this considerably more.
Saving throws: Why does someone with a strong soul and a supposedly powerful will have a sh*t will save? Just looking at this balances out the class when you're put in actual combat. Considering wisdom is a dump stat for the class, they're going to have crap chances of making their will save when a spellcaster comes onto the scene and casts a spell to completely take them out of the fight or straight out kill them. Keep this if you want, I would personally swap the will save with one of the other two; an argument could be made for having a good or bad fortitude save depending on how you look at this class. Only give them a bad fortitude save if you also get rid of their poison and disease immunity, though.
Tips for rebalancing: By no means do you have to listen to my advice, but this class definitely needs to be toned down. Rather than looking at what you have on its progression table and trying to remove things, clear it off and only put what the class needs on it. Put on your soul abilities, then about half of the other things. Decrease the hit dice size. --Macvec (talk) 23:27, 8 February 2013 (MST)