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Silver2195 posted:Yeah, vampires are the sort of creature where race-as-class actually makes sense. Does it, though? I mean, mechanically speaking, sure, but a vampire is basically just a regular guy with a side hustle and some awkward neuroses. There's no reason he couldn't be studying magic or martial arts or whatever, is there?
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Mar 21, 2024 01:13
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Phenotype posted:Does it, though? I mean, mechanically speaking, sure, but a vampire is basically just a regular guy with a side hustle and some awkward neuroses. There's no reason he couldn't be studying magic or martial arts or whatever, is there? He could be, but I guess that would come at the expense of training focused on overcoming the awkward neuroses, improving his hypnotic powers, making his bat form larger, etc. So a vampire who studies magic or martial arts would be multiclassing. The alternative way to handle this sort of thing (used in PF2 and I think 4e) is that everyone gradually gets upgrades from separate "race" and "class" packages. This means that vampire upgrades need to be balanced against human upgrades and dwarf upgrades, rather than against fighter upgrades or wizard upgrades, which means vampire powers for PCs are going to be fairly weak. (It also can lead to weird issues where dwarves don't feel fully dwarven at level 1 to some players.) It creates interesting build options, though. The other other way to handle this sort of thing is the horribly clunky 3e way with templates and level adjustments. Silver2195 fucked around with this message at 01:34 on Mar 21, 2024 |
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Mar 21, 2024 01:32
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Phenotype posted:Does it, though? I mean, mechanically speaking, sure, but a vampire is basically just a regular guy with a side hustle and some awkward neuroses. There's no reason he couldn't be studying magic or martial arts or whatever, is there? I think from a more JRPG sort of perspective there's a definite appeal. Like in some anime fantasy stories based on video game mechanics monsters also have level and evolution trees and so on. Where out of 10,000 ghouls only 1 ever becomes a full Vampire Lord kind of deal.
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Mar 21, 2024 01:33
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Phenotype posted:Does it, though? I mean, mechanically speaking, sure, but a vampire is basically just a regular guy with a side hustle and some awkward neuroses. There's no reason he couldn't be studying magic or martial arts or whatever, is there? Right, which is why that was an option too, in 4e. You can play the vampire class (as any race) to be a full time Dracula with all the cliche powers, you could play a Vyrloka race with a day (night?) job as a wizard or something, or you could do just about anything in between, depending on how you choose to interact with multiclass feats and/or hybrid class. "Being literally Dracula" is very barely just enough of a design space for an entire class, complete with class progression, but you'd also to be right to say it's kind of a thin concept as far as an entire 4e class goes, when the conventional wisdom is that a full class needs a minimum of 100 distinct powers.
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Mar 21, 2024 02:04
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Phenotype posted:Does it, though? I mean, mechanically speaking, sure, but a vampire is basically just a regular guy with a side hustle and some awkward neuroses. There's no reason he couldn't be studying magic or martial arts or whatever, is there? It all depends on what you want out of a class system. D&D has historically flailed around a bunch as to whether classes are a component of a point-based build system or a quick way of building a coherent character with niche protection - this interacts a lot with whether multiclassing even makes sense too. For actual at the table gameplay, coherent classes make a lot of sense - a player can pick up a class, make a few customisations, and just go without having to build up their entire concept from scratch. This is particularly important in a game that wants to have a lot of progression while also maintaining that variety across the pcs. But the more customisation, multiclassing, and overlap you provide between classes the more this is compromised. Personally in a class-based game I think the desire to 'multiclass' is much better served by writing new, consistent classes that do the thing they're supposed to do and fit in the gap - don't try and chop a fighter and a wizard class in half and glue them together, just write that swordmage that works by itself. The biggest advantage is you can make the class do the things it's supposed to do directly at each level - no need to avoid giving a concept its core abilities at level 1 and so on just to limit multiclass dipping. (This also implies that when you're trying to represent someone who changes profession in the fiction, you're way better off using respec-style mechanics to just rebuild the mechanical fighter as a mechanical wizard rather than trying to glue your abstractions together.)
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Mar 21, 2024 02:28
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Phenotype posted:Does it, though? I mean, mechanically speaking, sure, but a vampire is basically just a regular guy with a side hustle and some awkward neuroses. There's no reason he couldn't be studying magic or martial arts or whatever, is there? Considering how long-lived vampires are, if you do the "gradual vampirification as a class" method, you could say that vampires normally take years-to-decades to hit Dracula levels, while the class is more akin to speed running the progression and focusing exclusively on honing your vampirism. Like someone who jogs casually vs someone training for an Olympic marathon.
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Mar 21, 2024 02:48
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3.x especially had a weird problem where it inherited classes from ADnD, where they were lifestyle careers. Being a Druid didn't mean you had a few levels in this--it meant you were part of the druidic order, that to advance in level you had to attend Druid moots, that to reach higher levels you had to win duels and do politics. Being a fighter meant you got a castle, and men-at-arms, and a title of nobility as part of your class features. Your class wasn't something you could easily multiclass around in ADnD because they were meant to be entire wholesale lifestyle identities. 3.x did away with that and made cross-class penalties limited to none beyond the penalty of poor optimization, so you ended up with a mess where your character's backstory had you take one level of monk for the dodge bonus, but... how does that fit into your story? How does being an actual Monk fit into you being also a Fighter and a Sorcerer and three different splatbook classes? They stopped being identities and became level-packages you took, but they were level-packages entwined inextricably with their flavor despite it not working like that mechanically anymore. This kind of hits the peak in Pathfinder where it all ends up with everyone making ideal level 20 builds with 10 different classes stuffed into there which make like, no sense narratively. I think you have to really define what a class is and if you want to use it or not, it's a very specific thing that only really works best in very narrow-focused definitions of characters. Making your character a la carte or making it a very well defined class, but trying to do both worlds is just going to lead to a mess. I think that 3.x is such a weird middleground of the two is why it's so hard to figure out how to have, say, a vampire wizard, because you need to balance having the vampire powers with the levels and honestly just giving it a ton of bonuses and a ton of penalties that balance each other out sounds like the best way to me.
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Mar 21, 2024 02:53
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Silver2195 posted:The other other way to handle this sort of thing is the horribly clunky 3e way with templates and level adjustments. 3e templates were crazy difficult to balance, but they made a ton more sense than "you need to train and unlock your magical vampire/werewolf/hill giant abilities in a way that's suspiciously similar to a regular class". You're a mythical monster, you're stronger than a regular human, that's it. And I'm not even sure about the first part. Yeah, it's hard to judge if a vampire Fighter 1 is evenly matched against a Fighter 6 or a Fighter 7, but compared to writing a full Vampire pseudo-class that needs to be balanced at every level, it's both more simple and easier to adjust to your particular campaign and players.
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Mar 21, 2024 10:04
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NihilCredo posted:3e templates were crazy difficult to balance, but they made a ton more sense than "you need to train and unlock your magical vampire/werewolf/hill giant abilities in a way that's suspiciously similar to a regular class". You're a mythical monster, you're stronger than a regular human, that's it. In practice, it was pretty much the exact opposite. Level Adjustment was basically a total failure, even on top of all the problems of per-level multiclassing. Your level 1 Vampire Fighter would die to a light breeze standing next to the level 6 druid, and it wasn't even close. At some point the writers realized this problem, and introduced racial classes that let you progress through your abilities over time, so your level 1 vampire is supposedly on-par with a level 1 fighter, and your level 6 vampire, with most of their abilities and a normal amount of hit die, is hopefully on par with a level 6 fighter... which is frankly a pretty low bar to pass. Race-as-class arguably still had issues in 4e, but at least Vampire is a functional - if limited - class with one novel gimmick, and it functions as written if your goal in D&D is to play as Literally Dracula. And hey, if you still wanted to play a Vampire Fighter, you can still do that, as a hybrid, and then you're not only on-par with everyone else in levels and powers, but even pretty functional, with both infinite healing over an adventuring day to take lots punishment, and also a mean backhand for pushing people around. It exists, it works, and it's pretty balanced in practice, which is a lot more than can be said about any version of Vampire in 3.X.
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Mar 21, 2024 11:23
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Vampire|Rogue was straight up good in 4e, imo. Dex/cha is a great powerful stat focus, it did solid damage, and rogue abilities generally fit the vampire vibe. One of my favorite builds, tbh.
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Mar 21, 2024 11:41
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Just add vampiric abilities to Aristocrat class features with full transformation as a capstone.
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Mar 21, 2024 13:08
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NihilCredo posted:3e templates were crazy difficult to balance, but they made a ton more sense than "you need to train and unlock your magical vampire/werewolf/hill giant abilities in a way that's suspiciously similar to a regular class". You're a mythical monster, you're stronger than a regular human, that's it. Really? I feel like there's plenty of stories of people undergoing monstrous transformations (and it's worth pointing out that a vampire isn't a monster, its a monstrous transformation) and then basically being considered a child who needs to learn to use and control their new powers and fit into their new lifestyle. There's a reason older, more experienced vampires are usually considered far more dangerous than those who were just turned. For many traditional monsters this is seen as more a side effect of getting older and maturing (see: dragons) but for vampires, who don't really age, it is usually cast as experience and refinement of their monstrous abilities rendering them far, far more dangerous in the same way traditional classes work.
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Mar 21, 2024 13:33
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New strip! https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1300.html
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Mar 21, 2024 15:13
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Bloodfeast still ferociously gnawing away as a lizard is just the most adorable thing ever. Little guy knows no fear.
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Mar 21, 2024 15:18
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Hooray! ... 
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Mar 21, 2024 15:19
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That's some fuckin crazy knockback
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Mar 21, 2024 15:20
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Oh... oh no... I think poor Bloodfeast is about to become an hor d'oeuvre. ...we're about to witness Belkar's noble death as he single-handedly kills the dragon avenging Bloodfeast, aren't we?
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Mar 21, 2024 15:23
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Sunny about to get healed and telekinetically fly some paladins up to join the fight and O-Chul will say something both humble and badass as Belkar jumps into the dragon's maw to save Bloodfeast we get a chestbuster joke when bloodfeast turns back into an allosaurus inside the dragon and Blackwing makes yet another "not this extremely specific situation again" joke.
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Mar 21, 2024 15:31
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How does the beholder's antimagic cone work with obstructions, anyway? Could Sunny cone him from safely behind the wall (the range is pretty long, right?)?
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Mar 21, 2024 15:51
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After the other goon mentioned it I was a little worried bloodfeast would be getting king konged so that's a (temporary) relief
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Mar 21, 2024 16:03
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Bloodfeast: "(chuckles) I'm in danger."
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Mar 21, 2024 16:06
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Randalor posted:Oh... oh no... I think poor Bloodfeast is about to become an hor d'oeuvre. Sadly Belker stands roughly no chance against the Dragon.
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Mar 21, 2024 16:49
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MonsterEnvy posted:Sadly Belker stands roughly no chance against the Dragon. Internal stab wounds to the esophagus and stomach count as crits, right? Edit: Alternatively, Belkar's final words are him just shouting "CHOKE ON IT!" over and over as the dragon learns why it's important to chew your food.
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Mar 21, 2024 16:53
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Randalor posted:Oh... oh no... I think poor Bloodfeast is about to become an hor d'oeuvre. Bloodfeast still has the same amount of HP as a lizard as he did as an Allosaurus, so he can take a beating probably. I also think the dragon would be smart enough to know that a creature that grows to the same size as you when inside an anti-magic field does not make a good snack when you're only guaranteed to not be inside such a field for as long as it takes another nearby creature regain consciousness. V has already demonstrated that dragons are not equipped to handle such a scenario well.
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Mar 21, 2024 17:01
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splank!
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Mar 21, 2024 17:16
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Also Bloodfeast would make a pretty good minion for Calder! I'm sure he has some evil genius plans that would be made a lot easier by the ability to sneak an allosaurus through a mouse door.
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Mar 21, 2024 17:29
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Sunny's eye isn't a X! He's not dead! It's all gonna be ok!
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Mar 21, 2024 19:25
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You'd have to be a pretty lovely beholder to get taken out by a single tail attack
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Mar 21, 2024 19:36
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Capfalcon posted:Sunny's eye isn't a X! He's not dead! It's all gonna be ok! Lien can heal Sunny no problem, they will be okay.
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Mar 21, 2024 19:37
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What is V getting out of her
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Mar 21, 2024 19:38
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SKULL.GIF posted:What is V getting out of her Healing potion i presume, she looks p hosed up
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Mar 21, 2024 20:02
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John Wick of Dogs posted:You'd have to be a pretty lovely beholder to get taken out by a single tail attack *Watches a child go down to a single melee attack.* "Wow, lame."
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Mar 21, 2024 20:12
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oobey posted:*Watches a child go down to a single melee attack.* Could be like a homebrew stunning tail attack, which would be more effective then just doing damage from the dragons POV.
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Mar 21, 2024 20:16
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Are beholders made of the same material as superballs
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Mar 21, 2024 20:17
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Raenir Salazar posted:Could be like a homebrew stunning tail attack, which would be more effective then just doing damage from the dragons POV. It's okay; she managed to roll with the blow.
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Mar 21, 2024 20:17
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John Wick of Dogs posted:Are beholders made of the same material as superballs Yes, they're like Madballs. Remember Madballs!?
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Mar 21, 2024 20:24
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Reminds me of the "follow the bouncing ball, kids" trick and drat that was rough
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Mar 21, 2024 20:28
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So is Serini just gonna stand there for the entire encounter or something? What is she even doing?
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Mar 21, 2024 20:48
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Gwyneth Palpate posted:So is Serini just gonna stand there for the entire encounter or something? What is she even doing? ... she's an old woman who's biggest strength is being able to get people to get along and
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Mar 21, 2024 21:17
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She gave the Order a decent bit of trouble, though that was with Sunny's help. She also seems to have a bit of inferiority complex when dealing with big bads, though.
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Mar 21, 2024 21:26
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