I need some help with a new class I’m working on please.

I need some help with a new class I’m working on please.

I need some help with a new class I’m working on please. I want to create a morphling class that is totally unlike the druid, and closer to Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine than T-1000 from Terminator 2.

Odo could do all kinds of morphy stuff, but he had to recuperate at the end of each day, “sleeping” in his gooey form in a bucket. I don’t want the character to have to turn to goo every night, but I would like to make the player make choices as to when they’ll morph based on a value of hold. Morphing into a new form costs hold, but reverting to normal is free.

As such, I’d like one of the main moves to a modification of the healing that takes place during rest (when you rest…gain half your max HP). I’m thinking “when you rest…regain all your HP, lose all hold you have and gain X Hold”.

An advanced move can be “when you do this, gain an additional 1d4 hold” and a higher level version that replaces it could be “…additional 1d6 hold”.

Very high levels thoughts. Fictionally I’d want the character to be one of a kind; no others of their class exist (at least that’s what the character thinks 🙂 ).

I’d love any feedback on wording, amount of hold, etc.

Thanks!

12 thoughts on “I need some help with a new class I’m working on please.”

  1. Sounds like a simple starting move that states he gains his morph hold back after he successfully “makes camp”. (Look at how it’s worded in the wizard playbook for spell preparation) You could also do something like he has a set amount of Morph each day + his CON. Then you could do whatever advanced moves you wanted for gaining more hold, depending on how much you think is appropriate. I never watched the show really so I don’t know how often he uses his ability a day.

  2. Could they just spend HP to morph instead of Hold?

    And maybe they’ve got a move that lets them “morph” to negate/reduce damage, but the still lose HP when they use it. So they’re really resilient, but all that morphing in a fight still tired them out and reduces their flexibility going forward.

    Also, using a larger pool like HP gives a lot more design space for the morphing move. Like, each change could cost 1 HP, +1 HP to signifantly change form factor, +1 HP to change mass/size, +1 HP to be really quick about it.

  3. I recently made a witch/warlock class that has three forms(standard ugly, beast ugly, hot af) and I put the challenge in the fact that if you want to switch form quickly you have to roll and on 10+ you do it, on 7-9 it takes normal time(3-4 minutes that in a battle can be pretty bad) but you can return to the previous form immediately, on a 6- you are pretty fucked because you must wait to turn to the other form to do anything useful

  4. You can add advanced moves that increase hold generated to simulate growing in skills as a “morpher” even if they start with only 1 to 3. I suggest looking at the Sundered World Battle mind class that can morph it’s body into weapons.

  5. Also if you are going for less crunch, just give it morph equal to its CON when it rests and make the morph move not use any hold when he rolls 10+. Then give some other options to 7-9 other than using morph, like draw unwelcome attention or take -1 forward or take x damage during the transformation, etc, etc.

  6. I don’t like spending HP (you slowly kill yourself just by using your class abilities that way), but I think Jeremy Strandberg​ is otherwise on the right track with having a larger pool, with different forms and parts costing varying numbers of points.

    I’ve seen some classes where you have a pool of power points equal to a given stat (Constitution, say), and you spend points out of that pool to do stuff. Some of your points recover when you make camp, or when you take some other appropriate action. That could potentially work here.

  7. Lots of good stuff here guys, thanks! I’ll take all of it into account while I’m working on it.

    Jeremy Strandberg and James Etheridge, I like the idea of a larger pool (Maybe Constitution rather than CON), and Scott Selvidge I like the idea of not using Hold on a 10+.

    Eric Lochstampfor, can you provide a link to the Battle Mind class for me, or know where I can find it?

    Thanks everyone!!

  10. So Eric Lochstampfor, I watched the Drunkens and Dragons review of Sundered World and I had to buy it. I bought a print copy and downloaded the PDF. Thanks for the recommendation!!!

    Battle Mind has some really neat aspects that I’ll definitely incorporate. But it’s the Wizard’s “Fatigue” that I think works best for what I’m trying to accomplish. Rewording it for “morph”, my Fatigue move would be “When you morph you gain FATIGUE, and when your FATIGUE is equal to your current hit points, you fall unconcious. When you rest, your Fatigue is reduced to 0”.

    Then Morph is “When you Morph your form, gain 1d4 Fatigue, and roll+CON. 10+ hold 3. 7-9 hold 2. 6- hold 1 in addition to what the GM says. Spend hold to…”

    An advanced move adds “on 12+ hold 4”.

    I’m thinking d6 damage, 10+Constitution HP. Lowish base damage increased by the Battle Mind stuff, and high HP and CON for morph usage. Thoughts?

    Thanks everyone who commented, and additional comments are welcome! I’m going to chew on this for a while. I may have a first draft to share for revising by the end of the week.

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