Cool ideas that mechanically were shit

3.5 has a million of them. I always really liked the idea of shadowcasters, but mechanically they were terrible.

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Shadowcasters are fine, they're just not as overwhelmingly powerful as the usual casters of 3.x. Their damage cantrip was 2d4 while most cantrips barely do a d3. They also get said cantrips 3/day per time you pick them up early on, so you can have plenty of uses until you start picking up more Spell-Mysteries. You also get your basic caster knowledge options along with several good stealth methods; you're not likely to be a Good blaster, but you can be a capable mage and sneak as a Shadowcaster.

3.PF summoners. I loved the concept of getting a companion who you could evolve as you gained more levels but I hated how you could also summon weenies to help flood the field with superior action economy as well.

Master Summoners were especially busted, to the point where the SRD outright states "listen, if you allow this class, nobody else is getting their turn, so be nice and let them control the monsters to compensate" as if building a badass Fighter just to play a generic bear makes up for it.

>want to be necromancer wizard
>have to wait till level 7 to make a zombie
It is such a basic fantasy concept. And not even consistent with how often undead show up.

Lore-wise, shadowcasters are total shit, and the Shadow-Weave's Death in 4e was completely justified- the entire concept already existed in Shadow-Caster Illusinist kits in 2e, and had much supplement, even making it to Ravenloft, and being present in the phase of 2e-3.5

A Shadow Caster literally was "Literally play as a Ansem Seeker of Darkness/Xehanort who hates normies." Shadow Casting addressed an interesting noting of spellcasting, at the cost of constraint in it's use at the cost of prior abilities- which hilariously backfired because in 3.5's run, the actual class variant options for Wizard Illusionists were so fuckign good you'd get pic related coupled with stuff like master Specialist or the fact that there's even another feat that increases Shadow Conjuration and evocation- and some variant class features which is the 2e stuff occuring EVEN QUICKER in your progression.

Shar Worshipers were basically a massive fucking joke opposed to this, Shadow-casting literally tried to be Psionics to magic without actually doing the whole "Everyone is unprepared for it thing". They accidentally reinvented the wheel for something they already covered but forgot about.

Necromancers got so much shit in 3.5 it isn't even funny, Spell aquistion is an issue but the variant stuff you could get for a Necromancer could make you a minion-whore piss easily.

Yeah, if I recall-
Two Articles for variant class options
Racial choice to benefit this
Master illusionist and two PrC's for Shadowcasting
A Feat
And you'd have 100%+ effective Shadow Conjuration and evocation, and buffs to your illusions so powerful you're effectively Spiderman Mysterio levels of effective in Combat.
Oh right, Domains and Advanced Domain powers- and the whole Planar Touchstone feat of the Archives of enlightenment grouped with it for Domain Power cheese of any published domain supplement.

>It is such a basic fantasy concept.

It's actually not. It's 99% mechanically-motivated munchkin bullshit, 1% Behold My Entitled Zothique Fanboy Hipsterdom, and neither should be accommodated by the rules.

Then there's Shadow Lichdom- Want the powers of a Lich, Shade, Undead Shadow, and the security of NO ONE Knowing how to actually properly kill you and an apperance which does not directly constitute lichdom to boot on viewing? Just pop into Ravenloft, which you can now get in and out of thanks to the Serpent Inn, get the Shadow Virus, and attempt the ritual to become a Shade on like the near end of the incubation period- and BAM! Permanent field advantage, Lich powers, Lich salient Abilities, Lichspells, Lich Power Rituals, Lich artefacts and whatever else on offer due to your INT score and time transpired for you.

Shadow Illusionists are literally SET for life.

Out of the "styles" of wizards I think would be ol "throw some zombies at it" somewhere in top 5 maybe? But most of those wizards are not adventuring, they're BBEGs or stashed away in some hole because ay yo senpai undead shit neg energy and everything dies to that shit just being around

My table rule is that you aren't allowed to play a necromancer if you can't name the story that inspired you to be a necromancer. I have had to allow one necromancer ever, and since that guy was actually interested in roleplaying a magical mad scientist he made a Dr. Frankenstein "Behold My Masterpiece" character that didn't ruin the action economy. Works like a charm.

Bonded Summoners

A prestige class that lets you trade out you familiar for an elemental that grows as you level up, but the class only gave you half casting and the elemental lagged behind the CR you'd be up against.

I theorybuilt one on a bard chassis with that wasn't bad, but it really needed the elemental to be one tier higher at all times (large when you got medium, huge when you got large, etc) to stay effective. And/or let you build your elemental, rolling their stats, choosing their feats, etc.

I loved the idea too. If I ever do play 3.X again I'll probably run one anyway

iirc, they have an aoe, save vs will, instant death spell that lacks the [Death] keyword. That aint bad.

They're a lot like beguilers (similar forte, similar ability to bypass SR to various degrees).

Its unforgivable that they lack the best shadow spells and are incompatible with the best shadow malarkey though. WTF?

Zombies/skellingtons are pretty high tier if enemies use them right. I view them as an intermediate undead, once you stop bothering with retarded peasant zombies.

Binders. I always wanted to play a binder. I hate that 5e scalped them and remade them into the uninspired shit that is warlock.

Bonded summoners look lame at first ("HAHAHAHAHA a half progression caster, HAHAHHAA") but then you realize it has VASTLY faster shapeshifting progression than a druid, great stats, great resists, and, oh yeah, doesn't go away when dispelled/disjoined afaik.

Elder earth elementals (that can't be dispelled/prot evil/gooded vs) for example are great. Earth glide, amazing stats, and a 24 HD utter beast at, what, level 14?

SO GOOD.

MFoV refined a 5e Binder port that was originally on GitP, you can find it somewhere on their page for free. can't link rn but search "book of binding"

Truenamer, Green Star Adept, Healer, Acolyte of the Skin, Dragon Disciple, Drunken Master, Skullclan Hunter.
Read the OP again.

No. This is a complaint thread now.

Binders are still the furthest thing from mechanically shitty. It's an incredibly solid class.

Sadly any one who gets the line of Summon spells can do this. Warpriests can even get a standard action Summon with the right domains. The default Summoner won't be using his SLA though because no one picks the class for Summon Monster spam. So if you do ban Master Summoner you'll have fewer problems with the class.

There really aren't any great ways to balance pet classes without a lot of wonky design choices.

And for that record, basically anything that in 3e that is best described as "a huge blob of neutrality, probably magical in origin but not affected by dispelling/disjuncting/amfing" is going to be strong as FUCK.

3.0 monstrous vermin are especially great, but they're not bad in 3.5 either. Giant Insect is a kick ass spell especially with caster level malarkey, and weirdly, a Colossal Scorpion is one of the best solutions to melee beasts that think they're hot shit for using AMF. Or even put (undercast) AMF on it.

Healer was lame.

There was a 3.5 Warlock which is pretty thematically similar to the 5e Warlock.
There is a Medium in Pathfinder which was clearly inspired by the Binder, but it alas is also bad.

The Binder had really interesting fluff and mechanics unfortunately it was really underpowered past low levels and needed a lot of revision to be viable. Ultimately it needed permanent, always-on class abilities which gave a specific mechanical niche.

there was a jester class in one of the splat books, but it was just a different flavor of bard. i'd quite like a fully realized jester class

Mechanically interesting but they don't scale well and many of the vestige abilities don't really synergize well meaning there are really only a handful of actual options. Otherwise you just have a kind of random grab bag of buffs. You can have great DR and miss chance, but is the class really making the best use of these abilities? It doesn't really have anything going for it which makes it a worthwhile combatant to benefit from these defensive abilities. Defenses in 3.5 are inherently less worthwhile than offensive power. It can stand in melee and not dish out much damage, and it will invariably lose feats on its' class specific feat taxes.

The class needed something at base which the vestiges enhanced instead of the vestiges providing more or less 100% of the classes abilities.

There has never really been a good Bladesinger.

2e's is pretty dope, and if you pay attention to the Sage Advice, can't even argue that its broken. As he points out, RAW even separates Bladesinger style vs the Bladesinger kit.

Agreed on Shadowcaster, esepcially the shadowblades which were suppose to be for fighters and rogues but is generally underwhelming even if the abilities sounded kind of cool

Which issue of Dragon? Had a Bladesinger in the party in a long running 2e campaign and he was basically just any elven fighter/mage.

dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=44346

first response has a link to the sage advice pertaining to it. The whole discussion is sorta relevant I guess.

For years Veeky Forums has been bludgeoned with anons trying to use undead as a cheap, obedient work force, and if you explain to them they don't understand how the actual mechanics works or that in most settings people don't like undead because they're evil/disgusting/polute the world around them.

Offensive zombie hordes are totally ok.

Yeah, I agree with that. You throw down a zombie army, you're a fucking villain and every god following adventurer is running to slap your shit.

But there's those few special greentext I like about the grave digger keeping a hidden army of undead on standby to people their town

Really a lot of 3.5 prestige classes had some interesting ideas that were marred by lackluster execution. You could also say the same thing for pretty much anything printed in Dragon.

One of these days I just need to spend a weekend dredging through the entire 3.0 & 3.5 catalog and see what good ideas are worth saving.

>Offensive zombie hordes are totally ok.

Depends entirely on the game system. In DnD? No. There has never been a rule writeup for necromancy that did not either ruin the game for every other player by flooding the board with one character's extra actions, or disappoint everyone who wanted to "be a necromancer."

The only solution to this is for a game to clearly establish what its necromancers are, and that it is NOT The Easy Mode Diablo II Class you're thinking of, and that if you have complaints about that you can inscribe them into a femur and shove them up your ass.

In D&D, yeah, its fine in everything but 4e. Undead hordes hurting your feelings are totally irrelevant.

Necromancy has never been good in D&D. Either you're forced into becoming Evil just for casting the spells on a regular basis or you're fucking up combat by giving yourself an action economy that's greater than the full force of the party you're with.

Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the reason necromancy is decidedly evil is to discourage people from swarming every encounter they face with a horde of undead minions.

>Either you're forced into becoming Evil just for casting the spells on a regular basis

Retarded fanfic. Even then, if you assume [aligned] spells are [aligned] acts, just enslave 1 celestial with planar binding (a [good] spell) for every undead minion created, because hey, aligned spells are aligned actions and intent doesn't matter, don't try to backpedal now.

> or you're fucking up combat by giving yourself an action economy that's greater than the full force of the party you're with.

Baw. That just means its too good. Which... is none of my concern whatsoever.

>Retarded fanfic.
It's canon to way D&D handles necromancy, it's been covered practically since D&D's conception several decades ago.
>Even then, if you assume [aligned] spells are [aligned] acts, just enslave 1 celestial with planar binding (a [good] spell) for every undead minion created
Except that [evil] spells actively erode the foundation of reality each time they're used and only [sanctified] spells are capable of healing the damage, not just [good] spells in general. It's covered in book of Exalted Deed and Vile Darkness.
>Baw. That just means its too good. Which... is none of my concern whatsoever.
Because you've never run a game with a necromancer, much less played the game we're both talking about.

Really, all of D&D canon depends on an optional 3.0 sourcebook. Amazing.

>Except that [evil] spells actively erode the foundation of reality each time they're used and only [sanctified] spells are capable of healing the damage,

Fanfic even considering the books you mentioned. There is zero indication that, say, Contagion or Symbol of Pain erodes the foundation of reality.

If you think *negative energy* is an evil act because it introduces negative energy, then simply cast... more positive energy spells. Easy.

>Because you've never run a game with a necromancer, much less played the game we're both talking about.

Good ole "if you hurt my feelings, you've never played the game." Nice strategy.

I've both DMed for necros in all editions but 4e and 5e (their existence is at best debatable in 4e) though I did have an oathbreaker once in 5th, and played necros in all but 4th and 5th. I used to enjoy the whole Corpsecrafter tree, but nowadays I'd rather just be a non necromancer wizard, abuse Command Undead (the spell that runs off similar mechanics to Charm Person and disallows a save for mindless undead, lasting 1/day/caster level) and mostly use real spells.

The worst thing in your post is this however:
>It's canon to way D&D handles necromancy, it's been covered practically since D&D's conception several decades ago.

That implication that 3e had fucking anything to do with D&D's conception.

I've never met a necromancer player who didn't ooze date-rapist and you're no exception.

>Which... is none of my concern whatsoever.

I can only hope to one day become enlightened enough to know why an army of bone robots that cannot feel pain, think, learn, or remember is triggering but pulling down the armies of the celestial planes to wait on me hand and foot is not, and why abusing the action economy with said bone robots is awful but abusing it with triple advanced golems, Giant Vermin, or so forth is totally okay.

I'm guessing the answer is something something DEUS VOLT HURMANITY FUCK YEAR xDDD

Oh, those other abuses should also be banned, but their players don't have the same stench of seedy opportunism for some reason.

>It is such a basic fantasy concept
Yeah. For a ANTAGONIST.
Not for a character in a team-work based game.

Perhaps 3e isn't for you. There are far worse horrors left to show you than melee things.

Necromancers wouldn't be a problem if there was ever decent rules for mobs put in the game.

>Really, all of D&D canon depends on an optional 3.0 sourcebook. Amazing.

Not him, but there's a mention in the 1st edition player's handbook that only evil characters use animate dead regularly.

Also while we're at it, decent rules for underlings and organization management. You know, something to do with minions that doesn't involve hurling them at "THE EPIC BBEG" or some dumbass shit that opens up options for PCs to bring in minions of their own.

But that would require D&D actually becoming a general purpose fantasy system, rather than a fantasy RPG that can only run D&D but tries to pretend like it's a general purpose fantasy RPG.

Necromancers weren't actually that terrible in 3.5. The thing that people kept missing was that only skeletons and zombies were worth half a damn (mostly the former, but there were a few cases of the latter that were good, like giants) and you weren't supposed to bother with humanoids at all, instead focusing on massive, high HD monsters with loads of natural attacks (hydras for instance) and keeping only a small handful.

>Books officially written by WotC in regards to D&D
>Fanfic

>Summon Alien-template Monster 1/5 rounds with no other limitation.
>Summon Cheese.

Binder is a solid pick at any level by means of its versitility. You can pick or stealth, sneak attacks, ranged or melee combat, weird utilities, outright mysticism, skill monkey, party face....Seriously where did Binder fall short in your eyes?

There was this Veeky Forums story (so probably made up, but who knows) of a necromancer who animated bug swarms, and took the feats that gave each +1d6 damage and explode on death.

Alternatively, farming some sort of pixie for flying zombie insect horde could work.

>I can only hope to one day become enlightened enough to know why an army of bone robots that cannot feel pain, think, learn, or remember is triggering but pulling down the armies of the celestial planes to wait on me hand and foot is not, and why abusing the action economy with said bone robots is awful but abusing it with triple advanced golems, Giant Vermin, or so forth is totally okay.
Using undead is considered an evil action in D&D, I'm sorry you can't be a "good" aligned necromancer without someone calling down the guards to arrest you for turning someone's grandfather into corpse fodder.

Not him, but probably the fact that it was just that one Summoning vestige that was really on a different power level to the rest.

I agree with you though, there are some pretty neat tricks you can pull with a Binder. I think they're at the perfect power level, its just other classes were arguably overpowered.

suptg.thisisnotatrueending.com/archive/14364205/

Thread Necromancy. .

Dread necromancer (heros of horror suppliment book) seemed pretty good to me as a fear and deathmagic combat caster with melee focus and charisma casting. Took a while to ramp up in power but it was pretty good I thought.

Plus being able to use spells not from your class was cool.

You cant be good but you can be neutral aligned according to the heroes of horror 3.5 book as a necromancer. Which is funny because they go all the way to becoming a lich.

Spheres of Power my nigga. You can raise zombies from level 1, but they only last a few mintues/hours until you get high level.
The best part is that they rise as the same alignment you are, so if you really want to fuck with people you could have Lawful Good zombies

Mystic Theurge

All I wanna do is cast both Fireball and Cure Serious Wounds. But you lag behind by three caster levels, have weaker save DC's, and lose out on all other class features. You end up doing 1/2 of 5d6 damage instead of 8d6 damage with metamagic options.

Pathfinder almost made this viable by adding Oracle to fix the MAD problem, but now you lag behind by four caster levels instead of three and there's no feat in a splatbook to fix that problem. They added nothing to the prestige class to mitigate this.

Read the post before commenting next time, retard.

>Fanfic even considering the books you mentioned. There is zero indication that, say, Contagion or Symbol of Pain erodes the foundation of reality.

>If you think *negative energy* is an evil act because it introduces negative energy, then simply cast... more positive energy spells. Easy.

>in D&D
In... 3.0, if you use BoVD.
If you do, cast an equal amount of good spells, derp

>without someone calling down the guards to arrest you for turning someone's grandfather into corpse fodder.

Making 1HD commoner minions? Please. And if someone has a moral outrage about turning evil giants and dragons into skellingtons, then its them who has the problem.

I did what you said and no matter how many times I reread it, it still has you calling official books fanfiction, which means that you are still, in fact, a retard.

>it still has you calling official books fanfiction

No, it has me calling fanfiction fanfiction, ie. the total retardation that [evil] spells erode the foundation of reality. Which most certainly doesn't come from any official book.

They'd be fine in a party with the Tier 1s and 2s bannned

>No, it has me calling official material fanfiction
FTFY

Just because you don't like it doesn't mean that it isn't official user. If you want to play a "good" necromancer, play another game or something.

>It's fanfiction because I don't like it >:(
Wow, they weren't kidding when they said 3aboos had brain damage, holy shit!

Um...

One more time since you don't understand.

> the total retardation that [evil] spells erode the foundation of reality

Is reflected nowhere in 3e. And no, I don't like random user #516s wangst fluff. Thus, its homebrew.

>CTRL+F
>No 'Incarnum', 'totemist', or 'soulmeld' results

I loved the Incarnum/Soulmeld users, and the implications incarnum has on the setting itself.

I just love soulmelds. So much. Even if they're horrible, it's still amazing.

Honestly, Incarnates and Totemists weren't too bad; Totemists in particular had some pretty good stuff. You could make a solid melee combatant with a straightfoward, no cheese build or a crazy grappler/multiattack monster if you wanted to minmax. Incarnate didn't have the raw power but was a pretty versatile character and had the potential to be very durable even before items.

Poor old Soulborn had it rough though

>Is reflected nowhere in 3e.
Except for book of Vile Darkness/Exalted Deeds.

Yeah. Plus, soulmelds are super easy to mess with while playing- those glass beads/markers/counters/whatever to represent essence, and index cards for each soulmeld you have.

I usually run my games with a few tweaked rules for meldshapers. Namely, the availability of every soulmeld for every incarnum class,

Anyway, I really wish there were more soulmelds. Even homebrew ones. I've got a high-powered gestalt 3.5 game going, and one of my players are an incarnate/dragon, so I'm living vicariously through them.

Wrong. At least read books you comment on. Nothing in either remotely suggests evil spells erode the foundation of reality.

You're thinking of the idea that *negative energy*, some of which are evil, pollutes the world and makes it too spoopy. Which sure is fine, though I have to wonder why positive energy spells, or at least making deathless, wouldn't counter that.

>Wrong. At least read books you comment on.
You first.
>I have to wonder why positive energy spells, or at least making deathless, wouldn't counter that.
Because it's much easier to destroy than it is to create, which is why [sanctified] spells were the only spells with enough positive energy to undo the damage caused by negative energy.

Get it through your head: no one cares about your retarded fanfic.

It's not a fanfic when it's officially licensed merchandise. Are all 3aboos as confrontational and ill informed as you are?

>Are all 3aboos as confrontational and ill informed as you are?
Yes, unfortunately.

1. It isn't. Read BoED and BoVD. None of what you says is true other than that creation of undead is [evil] and is justified in BoVD as so doing for putting negative energy into the world, but not all [evil] spells involve negative energy and not all negative energy spells involve evil.
2. Even if we did use *your houserules* (which, I must add, appear nowhere), you can just cast... an equal number of sanctified spells. Derp.

The only mention of good/evil spells in both Vile Darkness and Exalted deeds is that it defines why spells are considered 'evil' or 'good'

>Only a few spells in the Player's Handbook have the evil descriptor *because* they do one or more of the following things.
>- They cause undue suffering or negative emotions
>- They call upon evil gods or energies
>- They create, summon, or improve undead or other evil monsters
>- They harm souls
>- They involve unsavory practices such as cannibalism or drug use.
Note: No mention about destroying reality, though I suppose calling upon an evil god might do that.

Even mention of Corrupt spells, which are super extra double evil spells, only take a terrible toll on the caster.

Negative energy doesn't cause damage. It's purely anti-life, where positive energy is positive-life. Otherwise, the negative energy plane would just be a hole to the far plane or whatever.

I mean, death is still bad, and murder is evil, so channeling negative energy is evil, but it's not radiation or someshit.

As much as I get my kicks shitposting nowadays, I used to have a lot of fun with those oddball classes from 3.5 back in the day. The whole incarnum thing game me two of the most fun PCs I've ever played, and the classes in PHB2 were decent. Shame that I only played with CoDzillafags that soured me on the whole thing.

Cite your sources.

I never got why they push the good evil thing so hard when its obviously positive and negative, I mean sure its easier to do good or evil things with it but at the same time you could totally do cool shit like use necromantic magic tonretard cancer cells. But nope. Shits evil. Hit them with more light magic till they die, also enslave some angels.

God, I loved magic of incarnum. One thing that I loved in Dnd 3e that you don't really get in too many other games is late edition weird shit. Incarnum, shadow casting, binders, book of nine swords, that's the shit that I really like. I haven't seen much like that in osr games, so that's my main hesitation toward osr stuff.