Classy Classes

Part V

November 14th, 2011

Alex Riggs

Dark Designs Archive

            Welcome to another Dark Designs. Those of you who’ve been readers for a while will remember that eons and eons ago, I began a series of articles where I built a “races with class” class for the kyton monster, explaining each and every step along the way, in order to give you an idea of how we go about making these classes.

            At the end of the fourth article, we had completed the first half of the class, wherein we had completely broken down all of the various things contained in the “kyton monster” package (hit dice, regeneration, ability bonuses, special attacks, DR, SR, etc., etc., etc. Essentially, everything that you would get by taking the Bestiary suggestion of just playing the kyton stat-block with PC ability scores instead of their standard array and PC treasure, as a CR 6 character), and then packaged it back together again to make a relatively smooth progression over eight hit dice and ten levels.

            Then, I revealed that it was time for us to start looking at the second half of the class, where we come up with new kyton-themed class features and sort of “turn the dial to 11,” allowing players to play as super-kytons. The article ended with an open invitation for you to write in with your ideas for some cool things you’d like to see the kyton class be able to do.

            That was near the beginning of August, and I’m sad to say that the reason it’s been so long for me to write this article is because the response to that invitation was…less than stellar. In fact, I didn’t get a single response about it. I’m a little puzzled by this, because I do get mail from readers (in fact, the reason that I chose kyton for this series of articles is because someone wrote in and specifically requested a kyton races with class), and as far as “homework” goes, I thought “come up with things you think are cool” would be a pretty fun one.

            Whatever the case, rather than dwell on it, let’s just jump right in to making super kytons, shall we? All right. So, what do we already know about kytons? I’ll make a brainstorming list:

1. Kytons have a magical affinity for chains, are covered in them, and can control them with their minds.
2. Kytons are lawful evil outsiders that are not devils, but live in hell. To the best of my knowledge, they began life in Planescape, as special denizens of a city made entirely of chains in the 3rd layer of hell. They were mysterious, psychotic figures known for their sudden appearances (foreshadowed only by jangling chains) and their maniacal laughter. According to the Pathfinder Bestiary, they can now be found on “the Plane of Shadow,” as well.
3. Kytons are generally associated with sado-masochistic themes.
4. According to the Pathfinder Bestiary, more powerful kytons are believed to often have “spell-like abilities or hideous special attacks along the themes of torture and pain.”

 

            All right, we should be able to work with that, I think. So, what sorts of things do I want to try to work into these next 10 levels?

1.             Greater ability to fight with and control chains, while still bringing the class’s offensive capabilities a little more into line with other classes at the same level (ie., four attacks at full base attack at 10th level is a lot more powerful than I’d have liked, so I want to slow that progression down a bit, so it doesn’t become, you know, eight attacks at full base attack at 20th level).
8. 
               Continued improvement to SR, DR, and possibly regeneration.
9. An upgraded version of the kyton’s unnerving gaze. Either a new gaze that does something besides making the target shaken, or, since the gaze is fluffed as “making its appearance resemble a departed loved one or hated foe,” perhaps some sort of disguise self variant.
10. As the Bestiary suggests, and the kyton’s sado-masochistic tendencies beg for, I’d like to include one or two tasteful special attacks or spell-like abilities that tie into themes of pain.

 

            Okay, now that that’s out of the way, let’s look at what we’ve got to work with here. This table has everything we had at the end of the last article, with all of the numbers (base attack, saves, natural armor, and SR) extended out at the same pattern to 20th level.

            Good. Now, let’s try filling in a rough outline of how I want the latter half of the class to break down. In general, we have more freedom here than we did in the first half of the class, but, at the same time, I prefer as much as possible to keep any patterns from the first half, so, for example, if the kyton’s DR was increasing every four levels starting at 3rd level (3rd, 7th, 11th, etc.), I try to keep that pattern if they continue to improve. For that purpose, I’ve color-coded the outline, with related abilities in matching colors.

            You’ll notice that the various chain warrior abilities all fall into the same pattern of level progression (every three levels), and the DR continues as before. The gaze attacks obviously don’t match the pattern (though this is fine, both because there’s not much we can do about that, and also because there’s a good chance that the gaze attacks won’t both be gaze attacks, but one will be some sort of disguise ability).

            You’ll also notice that I’ve apparently abandoned the kyton’s regeneration abilities. Between its natural armor (both in the form of a natural armor bonus to AC and in the form of automatically wearing super-chain-shirt), its DR, its SR, and its regeneration, kytons are very heavy on their defensive abilities. To me, however, their fluff seems to dictate that they should really be more offensively oriented. The monster does a fine job of both, with a large number of attacks at a decent attack bonus, but I’ve already made it clear that, for a PC class, this isn’t going to be sustainable indefinitely. Think of it as only having so many “power points” to spend on the class. Every point I put into increasing regeneration is a point I can’t put into greater chain warrior abilities, or cool new powers. This gave me a choice of either continuing regeneration, or continuing DR. The regeneration 2 (defeated by silver or good-aligned weapons only) is going to “age” a lot better at higher levels than DR 5/silver or good (both because anything with a +3 enhancement will defeat this, as well, and because DR 5 will be less and less relevant).

            Also not making an appearance here are any improvements to the kyton’s influence chains/writhing chains/dancing chains abilities. This is just an illusion, however: I’m actually going to be merging the chain warrior and dancing chains progressions (not the abilities, just when you get improvements to them), so one or more of the four “chain warrior improvement” abilities will actually be improvements to dancing chains.

            As a last note before we move on, to those of you who are wondering about what an “endcap” is, that’s just a term we use to describe a sexy “final ability” that rewards you for finishing out the class. It may or may not be all that terribly powerful (though, we tend to be just a tiny bit more relaxed about the power level of 20th-level abilities, because by then the game is basically over, and, well, people can be casting wish several times per day), but it needs to be fun and awesome to play with.

            So, why don’t we start by getting all of that damage reduction out of the way. Here’s our damage reduction so far:

            Damage Reduction (Ex): Beginning at 3rd level, a kyton’s skin becomes supernaturally tough, and is able to turn aside most attacks. The kyton gains DR 5/magic.
At 7th level, this damage reduction improves, granting the kyton DR 5/good or silver weapons.

            And now the new additions.

            At 11th level, the kyton’s damage reduction improves still further, granting it DR 10/good or silver weapons.
            At 15th level, the kyton’s damage reduction becomes harder to pierce, and can now be overcome only by attacks that are both good-aligned and silver.
            At 19th level, the kyton’s damage reduction reaches its final peak, granting it DR 15/good and silver weapons.

            That wasn’t too hard. The switch to good and silver only does so much good against characters with magic weapons (now overcome by a +4 enhancement bonus rather than only +3), but does a lot to deal with people who just bought a silver weapon or cast a spell to align their weapon, or something, and the raw amount of DR has tripled.

            Next up is the 12th-level improvement to one of the kyton’s chain-related abilities. As I said, some of these will be improvements to chain warrior, but some will be improvements to dancing chains, or possibly just new chain-related abilities. I’ve already said I want to slow down the kyton’s powerful ability to attack with many chains in a round (sadly this ability is even more powerful on the cooler dancing chains class feature, which can be used as a standard action, rather than a full-round action). I think I’ll make a new ability here. Something fun, and flavorful, which can be useful and perhaps even powerful in combat, but won’t be as powerful as, say, 5 attacks at full base attack as a standard action anywhere within 35 feet.

            Maelstrom of Chains (Su): Beginning at 12th level, as a full-round action that does not provoke attacks of opportunity, a kyton can simultaneously animate all the chains on its body, causing them to lash out in every direction, slicing his foes to ribbons. The kyton makes a single attack against each creature within 15 feet, using its full base attack bonus. Each attack uses a different chain, so kytons who have enchanted one or more chains as weapons may make only use each such chain on a single attack. A kyton can choose not to attack specific creatures within range of this ability, such as its allies, but rarely bothers to do so.

            I think that that will do nicely. The next thing on our list is the gaze improvement at 13th level. Now, I’d like to give the kyton a paralyzing gaze, because the last gaze was fear-related, and a paralyzing gaze would allow for the kyton to capture foes alive (actually, another special chain ability might be good for that, as well), which fits well into their sadistic tendencies. On the other hand, paralysis is effectively death in this game, especially if the kyton is in a whole party of adventurers, which might contain a rogue, and, at the very least, will contain someone who can perform a coup de grace. Therefore, I’ll revisit the paralyzing gaze at 16th level, where it might be a bit more reasonable. Personally, I’m still intrigued by this “wear the faces of lost loved ones,” thing, and I want to find something to do with that.

            My creative side thinks that it would be cool if the kyton could disguise self to look like anyone he had personally killed, or perhaps just anyone whose soul had been damned to the nine hells. My logical side, however, feels that this would make the previous ability (to appear as a lost loved one or hated foe of anyone he’s fighting) would be somewhat hampered, because surely not everyone has a loved one or foe in the hells, let alone killed by that specific kyton, and the abilities are obviously supposed to be related. We’ll go another way, then:

            Visage of the Lost (Sp): At 13th level, the kyton gains the ability to take on the appearance of its victim’s departed friends and foes. This functions as the spell veil, with a few differences. First, it affects only the kyton, and lasts indefinitely, though it can be resumed or suppressed as a standard action.

            Secondly, the kyton does not directly control who or what it appears as, and, in fact, may appear as different things to different individuals. A kyton using this ability always appears as a lost loved one or bitter enemy of the creature using it, usually the one that the creature has the strongest feelings (whether guilt, grief, or fear) towards. Thus, one character viewing a kyton using this ability might see his dead father, while another character viewing the same kyton might see a wife who died of illness, etc. The kyton does not gain any special ability to know who it appears as to any specific individual.

            Finally, any creature viewing the kyton must succeed on a Will save (DC 10 + ½ the kyton’s class level + the kyton’s Charisma modifier) or be shaken for as long as they can see the kyton, and an additional 1d6 minutes thereafter. This is a mind-affecting emotion and fear effect. Even characters who disbelieve the illusion must still succeed on this secondary save.

            All right. I’m fairly happy with that. Unfortunately that’s all the time we have this week, but I’ll be back in two weeks to finally finish this class. In the meantime, don’t forget to check in next week, when I’ll be discussing everyone’s favorite wizardly implement.