So in the back of this book there is a chapter on making your own custom classes and/or archetypes. has anyone out there on Veeky Forums ever actually used this? like out-and-out made a custom class(s) for their campaign? not just use it to "fix" or "tweak" a pre-existing class but invent an entirely new one? bit curious to hear if so.
and if you have used this any additional tips or advice when doing this?
Bump
So I'm gonna take it from the lack of response that the general answer to all the above is "no" then?
nothing good comes from letting players do this, because they can change the RAI on the fly during negotiation.
It was nice that paizo considered it, but it should never be used unless the GM's letting everyone use the rules in question.
>nothing good comes from letting players do this,
OH GOD NO!
I was thinking this would be better implemented if the GM made the custom classes to suit whatever setting they built and the players could then chose to use them (certainly certain NPC's will take levels in the class).
But then, as a rule, I don't give players complete carte blanche during character creation.
I haven't used those rules but have done a little homebrew work of my own. I've been playing 3.P for years now and figure I know about what to aim for in terms of the kind of tools needed to make a class functional and capable without overstepping itself.
Was there a particular concept you had in mind to make OP or were you just looking into the rules themselves in order to decide if you'd lease them out as viable means for your players to make characters?
Pathfinder has enough classes and subclases that you can toss them and use them in any setting, check out all of them. Now I know that is a lot of books but its worth it.
Even without going into every book there's a fair amount of customization, never mind that most of it is on the online SRD and available with a search bar and annotated tabs.
Still, there's something to be said for doing things exactly how you want them rather than looking for "close enough for government work."
>Was there a particular concept you had in mind to make OP
at this moment no, but I suspect that I may be tempted later to make use of this chapter and figure I might ask now for any tips when fiddling with this to ensure that what I make isn't horrifyingly broken, over powered, or nerfed to the point of uselessness.
About, oh, 10 years ago I found a PDF on the net that broke down 3E D&D classes into point values and let you build relatively balanced classes and prestige classes that way. It even went into detail about how on paper the Monk is worth a lot of points, but in practice the class was horrible. It was quite the good read. I used it to make a couple classes for my campaign, the most interesting of which was the World-Speaker. They basically used an assortment of bardic music, Power Word spells, and truename Utterances (with modified rules for use) and were essentially battlefield controllers and supporters.
Another was the Rune-Forger, basically a divine artificer that focused more on frontline combat and permanent magical weapons and armour instead of consumables. They had the ability to modify the properties of magical items mid-combat, such as changing the elemental properties or even swapping out what kind of creature type a Bane weapon did more damage to.
The section in the Advanced Class Guide really needs a few examples as well as a rating system for existing class features, to give would-be designers an idea of what is and is not balanced. I've seen way too many Pathfinder homebrews and even published products that have the concept and style down pat but the balance is completely off. Either the class is worse than a 3E Fighter or it's the new Tier 0 uber-class that completely invalidates the existence of another existing class.
Alright, here's a few that come to mind.
Martials as they are in the core need help to be able to do anything but fight. If you want a warrior without resorting to Path of War's martial adept setup, consider boosting their skill points and giving them social discounts wherever their martial skills would be recognized and appreciated as well as discounts dealing with weapons, armaments and tools of their trade.
Fullcasters are going to be powerful unless you restrict their spell-lists significantly, but if you look at the Elemental School Wizard spell lists you should see about what you're looking for. Five to ten spells at every level is plenty to be thematically focused but viably diverse in what sort of situations they can handle.
Don't go fullcaster if 2/3's will do; Bard, Magus, Inquisitor, Hunter and Warpriest all do a fine job as maincasters if the fullcasting classes are few and far between or otherwise restricted due to societal or environmental limitations.
The Stamina point rules for combatants are pretty good.
If it doesn't get spells, don't give it dead levels.
If it does get spells, it's fair to make dead levels on the ones where they're getting a new spell level (Sorcerer 4, 6, 8 and so forth.)
Try not to give features collected from other classes, or at least not those alone. You can just multiclass if you want Evasion and Uncanny Dodge.
Back to Path of War; A game I ran with a few years back had a bit of trouble trying to help the martials with stuff to do other than full-attack each turn. Rather than re-learn each new class, it balanced out pretty easily by giving them one martial maneuver or stance that they qualified for based on using BAB as Initiator level. Worked out pretty nicely and gave some fluff for specializations while still keeping the base class's feats and functions as the main part of their kit.
>the Advanced Class Guide really needs a few examples
I feel like any RPG publisher that has a good thing going in terms of a crunchy system that they can publish rules-heavy supplements for is never going to reveal extensive rules for content generation. They have no incentive to undermine their revenue stream. That's why systems like that are so shallow whenever they get published in any game that isn't an indie game, and even then only if the indie game has no splat books in its future AND if the person writing it actually acknowledges that it's not going to be the next DnD.
Or, put another way, there's a reason the "make your own class" rules for Pathfinder consist of 12 pages at the back of a splatbook released five years after the original core book that also contains 232 pages of new classes and character options. To be honest, I'm surprised it's even 12.
Only people who like playing with rules are going to spend the time required to make their own class, those people are almost always power gamers, and allowing a player to create their own class at the same time as they're optimising their character build is a recipe for a class that perfectly suits their own character concept while being set at the baseline of all the best classes of the game.
Of course, I'd never do something like that. I'm much more perceptive and self-aware than all those transparent power gamers you see in games out there, and anything I created would be completely fair. On that note, check out this perfectly balanced class I made. It's 3e DnD rather than Pathfinder though, so you might need to buff it a bit to make it work in a Pathfinder campaign.
>Perfectly balanced.
In some circumstances I could understand that being true, but on base value that's a fullcasting Sorcerer/Wizard with full BAB, all good saves, single attribute dependence and a handful more bonus feats than either of the base concepts get. It's PF's Arcanist New Game Plus.
I'm pretty sure I'm pic-related but you Can make classes in a balanced and fair fashion if you understand the system well enough; Lightning_Warrior.gif right there is an example of someone who doesn't.
I remember that PDF, it was absolutely retarded because it devalued classes like the Cleric and the Sorcerer while giving insane point values to Monks and Rangers and the like.
Kinda sounds par for the course.
Think OP's been and gone by now though, let the thread die or post homebrew class concepts?
>Think OP's been and gone by now though
Well I gotta sleep sometime.
And I gots a job to boot, so it's a case of disappear for long stretches and then check in later to read over the posts.
> post homebrew class concepts?
I approve of this idea. alongside answering the original post, whichever you prefer.
>Sleep and work.
Fair enough. Might be a while til I can take the time but I've got a Necropath and a River King to throw up here later, 20 level base classes each.
This is the same that happenned with the race builder.
It's post-hoc justification for imbalance. "See guys, these classes are totally balanced! They have the same point value!"
...
Or maybe I'm just a bit jaded and they really had to use those point values so that classes fit into the "established power level for core" or some shit.
>post homebrew class concepts?
Don't mind if I do!
First, and the only one close to completion, the speedster:
docs.google.com
Because who doesn't want to play the Flash? Starts as fast the barbarain, ends faster than the monk, though not nearly as fast as the speedster monk from Gonzo 2. Comes with two archetypes, one for armored speedsters and one for completely non-magical ones. Had the ideas for 5 more archetypes before I lost my muse.
Others that I'm working on but are not nearly at completion:
The Odic, a green lantern like fusion between the Soulknife and Aegis. More than a hybrid class it is more of a gestalt. You get the astral armor and soulblade and have to decide how many orgone (customization) points you want to invest in either. Also, as it levels the class gains the ability to create walls and platforms, to create energy tentacles/hands to grab things and grapple enemies. I'm on the process of trying to convert the soulblade and many of the Blade Skills into something that uses the customizations point system from the Aegis
The Planeswalker: Basically, after visiting the MtG lore threads and reading some of the books, I realized the Neowalkers are basically mid level D&D mages in terms of power, So I decided to make this as an alternate class for the Arcanist, with some flavor changes, a severely restrained spell list, based on your color, in exchange for getting Planar Shift (self-only) aand constant Planar Adaptation, and some new color locked Arcanist Exploits.
The problem is synergy. You can set it up so that being able to physically attack twice is worth 3 points, being able to physically hit twice as hard is worth 3 points, and being able to cast double damage spells is worth 3 points.
Which is perfectly balanced if you have 3 points of budget. But if you have 6 points of budget the purely physical fighter is doing twice as much damage as the mage because they can use both their abilities at the same time while the mage can't. Multiply that by the entire Pathfinder system and it becomes clear that while point values can be a perfectly fine guideline for a major ability being worth a medium ability and two minor abilities, it's no guarantee that two 17 point classes will be equally useful.
The same math basically holds for CR, as well. 3 Helmed Horrors blocking a hallway for 3 Flameskulls is a rougher encounter than 6 Orc War Chiefs, even though they're all CR 4's. However 6 Helmed Horrors is a slow cakewalk. While it's fairly easy to use the chart in the DMG to size a single creature, it's basically impossible to size all the possible interactions it has with all other creatures and all character builds.
Con't
Support: A healer class, based on videogame healers, like the TF2 Medic, and most support heroes from Overwatch. Can heal for a number of rounds/day like a barbarian rage rounds, and has some talents to buff allies and debuff enemies. Depending on how it goes I'm thinking I can do a Tank class, based on having loads of HP and some battle control, and an Assault class, basically a fighter with baked in movement options. The Deffense/Specialist class seems like it would be the toughest to do, since it would need to be able to do walls, turrets, apply debuffs, snipe, throw sensors, create mines and sticky grenades, sneak, all depending on how it's built. Without actually casting spells. I'm thinking maybe a Warlock chassis.
If I do it as well as I'm envisioning it, these 4 classes should be able to emulate any character from Overwatch, TF2, X-COM, Paladins, ME3 multiplayer, even Titanfall, they're just D.Va with much more levels and lots of talents invested in the mech.
True. Homebrewing, like encounter making, is more of an art, you have to go more on instinct and eyeballing than on pint values. The science comes later, when playtesting, comparing expected to hit values with CR appropriate creatures, save DC with save values at that level, damage values with average HP, etc.
>Necropath and a River King
Bumping for this.