Talk:Master Biomancer (3.5e Prestige Class)
Ratings
|
Undead Knave opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4. |
|---|---|
| At level 5 in games that have a lot of downtime, every powerful enemy becomes a part of one of the PCs. The easy abuse for mind controlling enemies is patched, and although there are still potential ways to get consent for the one round you need, it's less glaring an issue. I think the bigger issue is just that the fusion ability at the basis of this class has glaring problems for any game. It would be interesting for a story, but in a game, you have - at best - the tale of someone who hybridizes their friends with animals to make them strong as a bear, fast as a tiger, and enduring as a horse (or at the very least as strong as a cow, as fast as a dog, and as enduring as a mule), with a hide the thickness of a dragon's scales. Speaking of dragons, though, let's discuss the more likely tale: the Mad Biomancer (who by the way, has no levels in the Biomancer base class, because it's actually easier and faster to get in without it, and allows you to hybridize more efficiently because your microbe pool is 0 which you can spend multiple times per day) deems that it's for the Greater Good to solve the crime problem in the city by making sure that all of their allies can find traps and stab people in the backs, and decides that four heroes that know simple spells are a greater boon to the world than a handful of clergy and hermits and students and hedge witches. They decide that it makes sense to just buy a ton of cows to get that delicious boost to natural armor. You know what else sounds good? Bonus feats. Every Fighter bonus feat. They get them at level 1, and at this point, what's stopping you from taking Leadership? It is a great honor to be noticed by the But wait, you say, I addressed the mind control thing. Yeah, but willing includes unconscious because D&D is creepy. You could close that loophole, but like, it doesn't actually help. Much. Beyond diplomancy (which, by the way, everyone can do, because you all have great Charisma and every class skill, and interestingly, not the skill points invested by the people you But whatever. Let's ignore what would happen in every game that had even a week of downtime and pretend it didn't have that. Either you never get to use the ability this class is clearly based around or every number the PCs have quickly grows exponentially. Also, it occurs to me, that since you gain the class levels that people you Also, I think the requirements are a bit weird, but I'm basically the least concerned about that. Wow, I haven't even addressed continuing to gain every class feature and spellcasting at every level of the base class you're probably supposed to take before taking this. I've kinda gone on a huge rant, and it all sounds really assy. I know. Not the intent, I swear. As I mentioned, I actually really would enjoy reading the story of the well intentioned doctor-fighter-person who learns to Voltron with his fallen foes and is driven mad. That sounds rad as heck. I don't think the concept works for a class in D&D, though, as much as that disappoints me. I want to make a gestalt batguana with a rhinocorn horn and cute little bunnydog ears. That sounds delightfully horrifying. All told, though, this class would not be good for the game. Tldr; go up and read it. It looks bad, but... well, it kinda is. Sorry. Let me know if you'd like my help in trying to make this a more workable concept. |
Is there a way to contest ratings? The 0/4 is not relevant since my edits and is making huge assumptions and odd connections.Enigma (talk) 09:19, 13 October 2017 (MDT)
Improvements.
Feel free to add ideas/concerns about the class. I'm not sure what Undead Knave is talking about fusing dazed people as from the beginning it has to be willing. Edited to avoid mind control effects though, and turned down the power for making a fusion permanent.
Why do you say it's better to just start it at level 1, the entry requirement is BAB 7 which is level 10 for a biomancer. Also I based the "continue leveling up in biomancer" off other similar prestige classes I've seen in homebrew
I'm not giving up on the fusion aspect, being able to control cells and being a biomancer just begs for hybridization. The main use I imagined for my own biomancer was using the temporary fusion to fuse with his test subject for intense physical battles, since he is so squishy and using the pods to make permanent changes to creatures sort of like making your own Owlbear combo. It's not meant to be a borg/assimilation thing. So I think I will add onto the pods a limit, once you make a certain number of permanent fusions that's it- the genome gets too dense to express it all.
I don't know about other games, but would everyone even be willing to be an insane mix of a bear/horse/whatever? Especially when making it permanent fuses their minds together as well. I don't think anyone in my game would want that. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Enigma (talk • contribs) at
I mean level 1 in the class. You can actually get in earlier than level 10 if you don't take any levels in Biomancer. The problem is that with the wording you advance everything, not just spellcasting or the scaling class features. Basically, as is, taking this would be better than taking base Biomancer, since it's Biomancer AND. There are some classes on the wiki that advance class features, but they're usually not every level, and they tend to be rare. A lot of players will do whatever if it means they hit harder, and if one player does it and others don't then you actually have an even bigger problem with combats, since it means that now one person is more powerful than everyone else. --Undead_Knave (talk) 09:05, 10 July 2017 (MDT)
Okay, my review and questions about the review. Please update your reasons for rating it 0 or switch the rating.
"I think the bigger issue is just that the fusion ability at the basis of this class has glaring problems for any game. It would be interesting for a story, but in a game, you have - at best - the tale of someone who hybridizes their friends with animals to make them strong as a bear, fast as a tiger, and enduring as a horse (or at the very least as strong as a cow, as fast as a dog, and as enduring as a mule), with a hide the thickness of a dragon's scales."
A limit on number of fusions you can make permanent has been implemented, and the requirement that amount of biomass must be reflected discourages just absorbing random animals immediately.
"though, let's discuss the more likely tale: the Mad Biomancer (who by the way, has no levels in the Biomancer base class, because it's actually easier and faster to get in without it, and allows you to hybridize more efficiently because your microbe pool is 0 which you can spend multiple times per day)" need to expend at least 1 microbe pool point, but edited to explicitly require biomancer levels, as the class is clearly for very advanced biomancers and would make no in-game sense to have unrelated classes take it. Not sure any DM would allow a rogue to randomly become a prodigy at biomancy, but fine it's explicit now.
"They decide that it makes sense to just buy a ton of cows to get that delicious boost to natural armor" Again, this was changed a while ago, there is a cap on the number of things you can stay fused with, and again the biomass would discourage most people from becoming a blobby cow man for a few AC points.
"So far this has been less than a year. Honestly, this might not even have been a month." What? Time flow and XP flow is so specific to individual games this means literally nothing.
"But wait, you say, I addressed the mind control thing. Yeah, but willing includes unconscious because D&D is creepy. You could close that loophole, but like, it doesn't actually help. Much. Beyond diplomancy (which, by the way, everyone can do, because you all have great Charisma and every class skill, and interestingly, not the skill points invested by the people you ate assimilated consumed fused with) there's intimidation ("Just let me do this one thing or I stab you in the face until you don't have a face. It's for the Greater Good because...evil dragon or whatever?") and just plain trickery ("Hey, I can cure those wounds for you, just let me do my magic touch. Oops, looks like you're a part of my gestalt now. Heh, don't you hate when that happens?"). If you try to block those "loopholes," guess what. There's literally nothing that this can apply to. Except the corpses of your foes when you hit level 5 of the class. So. There's that"
Most of this doesn't make sense to begin with, they have to understand what's happening and agree to it willingly. But regardless it was changed a while ago "Both creatures must be willing and they must be willing, conscious, and not under any mind controlling effect". I don't know how you ever thought lying about it could work with the wording, but it doesn't. They have to be WILLING to FUSE not just say "Sure" to a random question...
"But whatever. Let's ignore what would happen in every game that had even a week of downtime and pretend it didn't have that. Either you never get to use the ability this class is clearly based around or every number the PCs have quickly grows exponentially. Also, it occurs to me, that since you gain the class levels that people you add to your psychic gestalt, fuse with, you might level faster as Rogue than the Rogue? Because all these level 1 thief dudes you're eating for the Greater Good?" Cap on fusions. Can't "eat" people. Would require DM to provide you with conga line of willing various level rogues to be true even before that.
"Also, I think the requirements are a bit weird, but I'm basically the least concerned about that." Weird how? You have to be a knowledgable high level biomancer in order to qualify. Good alignment because this class builds off the creation, life giving aspects of OG biomancer class and not the disease aspect.
"Wow, I haven't even addressed continuing to gain every class feature and spellcasting at every level of the base class you're probably supposed to take before taking this." Okay? I based that off other prestige classes already in existence. This is for extremely skilled biomancers, they don't stop learning normal biomancer stuff they learn MORE than a normal biomancer.
"I've kinda gone on a huge rant, and it all sounds really assy. I know. Not the intent, I swear. As I mentioned, I actually really would enjoy reading the story of the well intentioned doctor-fighter-person who learns to Voltron with his fallen foes and is driven mad. That sounds rad as heck. I don't think the concept works for a class in D&D, though, as much as that disappoints me. I want to make a gestalt batguana with a rhinocorn horn and cute little bunnydog ears. That sounds delightfully horrifying. All told, though, this class would not be good for the game" "Let me know if you'd like my help in trying to make this a more workable concept."
Okay, I think you misunderstand the vibe I want from the class, there's nothing horrifying or mad built into it. But regardless, if your intent is for the class to be better please address the updates and rebuttals I put together. undead knave Enigma (talk) 09:42, 13 October 2017 (MDT)
- I'll look over it later. I'm heading to work in a few minutes, so I don't have time now. --Undead_Knave (talk) 11:12, 13 October 2017 (MDT)
Notice
Self-rating your own article is against policy. Check out that biz here: Dungeons and Dragons Wiki:Rating Articles. Secondly, welcome aboard. On the topic of getting ratings on an article, and getting ratings negatively, don't feel bad. It is, after all a point at which discussion opens, and getting feedback on an article is seriously awesome and something I wish I had more time for personally. Asking for an elaboration on why the article was rated a certain way is always helpful (those things should already be in the rating itself, but sometimes keeping things succinct for readability or other reasons causes that to fail, we're only human after all). So, you could be all like "Hey, UK, what do you mean by at level 5 with some downtime you just make any enemy part of a PC?" and I'm sure he'll notice and pop on and give an explanation as soon as he's got the time. You can always post on the talk page that you're looking for more feedback as well. That's about it for now I guess. Carry on. --Ganteka Future (talk) 13:39, 9 July 2017 (MDT)
- Its now been changed to actually require a high number of microbe touch points, and a limit on fusions as mentioned. If someone wants to fuse with 4 cows and be an awful blob of cow in exchange for some AC go for it. Though I am looking into having there be a risk of losing control of the body for multiple fusions too. Then it can be applied to creatures fine but makes it riskier to PCs, those 3 cow brains may overpower you then you are screwed for being more cow than man. This can be managed with restrictions, saying fixing holes will make it unusable isnt helpful nor true. Side note, playing with someone who would run off and instantly start 'eating' a herd of cows to hit harder sounds awful to play with. I will add more prereqs to prevent people from getting in from just any class. Its meant to be for biomancers mainly or at least a similar base. Theres no reason why a rogue could awake as a master biomancer so I will fix that as well.
- I will say my main goals for the class again, for those who want to make suggestions.
- 1. Fusion, biomancers making hybrids is a major point of the class. Such as owlbears, for the actual biomancer fusing temporarily with their test subject to increase their physical combat abilities
- 2.Given access to fitting homebrew spells not on the main list
- 3. Give the feel of a creative, especially gifted biomancer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Enigma (talk • contribs) at
Mechanical suggestions/comments
Like a mechanic? Think one needs tweaking? Let me know here :)Enigma (talk) 09:44, 13 October 2017 (MDT)
