Talk:Card (3.5e Class)

Work in Progress

Currently working using similar class as a template. Please do not edit. --Mrwest13 09:04, 23 November 2008 (MST)

Outline finished, some minor fixes remain. --Mrwest13 10:54, 23 November 2008 (MST)

Undergoing constructive criticism via the Tavern. --Mrwest13 20:28, 23 November 2008 (MST)

Major changes made, please reread before posting. --Mrwest13 21:06, 23 November 2008 (MST)

Why Would You Play It?

No, really. This class is just disadvantageous compared to the Wizard, who doesn't need to ever worry about firing off the wrong spell. Surgo 10:14, 23 November 2008 (MST)

The Card has the capability to cast multiple spells at once. Please read the entire class.--Mrwest13 10:54, 23 November 2008 (MST)

It's not even that awesome of an ability for the card (though obviously it would be for anyone else). Now instead of being able to cast one spell you don't want on a target you don't want receiving it, you can cast...two spells you didn't want, on a target you didn't want receiving them. How...wonderful. This is seriously the kind of character I'd kick out of any party I was in immediately, because every one out of ten spells cast, the target would either be (A) me, when it was an offensive spell or (B) an enemy, when it was a buff. Surgo 17:44, 23 November 2008 (MST)

What kind of DnD do you play? You don't generally kick people out for using a class that is new and different. Anyway, the Advanced Play Card ability doesn't have the 1d10 roll that the Play Card ability does.--Mrwest13 19:22, 23 November 2008 (MST)

You do kick people out who shoot a spell that will kill you or buff your enemies 10% of the time as part of their standard combat procedure (we call kicking such a character out "being smart" where I come from). For reference, that's twice as often as you will roll a natural 1. The Advanced Play Card ability says nowhere that it does not have the 1d10 roll, and it's only usable a small number of times per day anyway. But I see you've removed that part. Good. That's a very good step to making the class playable. Surgo 21:04, 23 November 2008 (MST)

I got the help from Daniel on balancing. I assume you could have given some helpful advice as well, but all you've given so far is a bad or good rating. Any class it technically playable, and different classes give different challenge levels.

On second thought, the class isn't bad as long as you don't want to cast more than 5 spells per encounter, because you can seriously just keep drawing 5 cards until you get 5 you want in between combats. Of course, that doesn't help the fact that 10% of the time you're an utter idiot in combat. Surgo 17:44, 23 November 2008 (MST)

Forgot to put on the page that Draw Cards may only be used during combat. The Card travels with his deck on hand, but not at the ready, just like any other class regarding its weapon.--Mrwest13 19:22, 23 November 2008 (MST)

So you have to spend one full-round action at the start of combat being useless? Okay, I see you changed it into a move action. That's not as bad...still not good, but not as bad. Surgo 21:04, 23 November 2008 (MST)

And another thing just occurred to me. What about all those -many- spells that don't have targets, just areas of effect? What sort of mechanic do they follow? Surgo 17:47, 23 November 2008 (MST)

AoE on target if it's a ranged AoE, otherwise AoE on self.--Mrwest13 19:22, 23 November 2008 (MST)

Ratings and Feedback

Looking for either/or. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Next stop: Monsterous Weapon Master. --Mrwest13 06:58, 3 May 2009 (MDT)

I kind of like the idea of some dude using his cards to cast with, and the random spell selection thing... well, it sucks, but it fits the character. I have to agree with Surgo that consistently harming your own party or helping your opponent really is a bad thing, and I would not be surprised if a character like that got kicked out of a party (same as the rogue with sticky fingers who continuously steals stuff from anyone, including the Town Mayor, the Sheriff and the Judge).

Additionally, not having the spells you want when you want them really sucks huge portions of ass, and giving up (supposedly) useful class abilities to manipulate your deck to partially negate that problem is really not a good idea, allthough I can see the opportunity to "fix" pokergames and such. There's just not enough reward for a random spell selection. Perhaps if you'd have acces higher level spells than you'd normally be able to cast or if any card in your deck was at least imbued with _something_ (drawing five and getting nothing would be bad, right?), there would be merit.

The revolver part is pure genius mixed with an equal part of pure insanity. I would not allow revolvers in my game, as it does not fit in my campaign, so it is totally negated. And since D&D is set in semi-medieval times, I think many dm's would not allow revolvers in their campaigns, because they do not fit. It is a nice and flavorful idea, though, but perhaps unusable in many campaigns. Or I might be wrong.

So how to make this class (in my opinion) workable? Well, you could give it access to more spells, so that smaller portions of the deck are useless. You could ditch the "spell"casting aspect entirely and go with spell-like abilities or something, more bardish music-like. The Extra-powered Play Card ability probably doesn't come up that often, so perhaps it could be made more powerful? (As a quick aside, do you use a real deck of cards for the drawing? Guess so.) If you go for the spell-like abilitie approach, this would mean a Royal Straight Flush (or whatever it's called these days) would be a insta-win, rendering the target comatoze or something. I really do think that losing the spells and adding spell-like or supernatural abilities would be the way to go. And personally, I'd ditch the revolver. Deranged 08:27, 12 August 2009 (MDT)

Some ideas It would be nice if class had more spells (because now it's worse than Wizard specialist with decent Int). It would be nice if there were some (minor) divinations as class feature. It would be nice if cards without spells were still worth something, otherwise being Card 1 definitely sucks, big time.

In other words, it would be nice if Tarot deck were used instead of plain 54-card deck. It is more fantasy-themed as well. Major arcana cards may by default have minor effects (on par with what reserve feats do, or a bit weaker; Fool and Magician can work as jokers), while minor arcana would have four classes of effects (say, card of swords can be used to make touch attack that deals slashing damage, card of cups to get +1 to a save or element resistance 1 for a turn, card of coins to dazzle a target within 5 ft or create minor illusion, card of wands to get effect of 1-round usage of a Detect spell).

Also, there can be a number of divinations as class features. For example, during morning preparations, Card can leave 1 spell slot as a "lucky guess" - spell for that slot is selected by DM to be something appropriate for coming day. On higher levels, there may be an option to leave more 'lucky' slots; also, there may be something like Augury as a spell-like ability (though with significantly less clear results - requiring Wis check to get it right).

For a class heavily-dependent on luck, it makes perfect sense to synergize with luck feats. For example, Card can use luck reroll to redraw cards and may also gain a couple of luck rerolls on higher levels, or even bonus luck feats (which may be too much, though - needs testing).

And there are three "timing" problems: minor one is that Card has no uses for swift or immediate actions and effectively can't use spells with "swift action" or "immediate action" casting time (she may be given an opportunity to take a card from deck and use it without looking at it beforehead as an immediate action). Major one is that, as written, spells with big casting time are still cast as a standard action and spells with weird components like Truespeak can be cast without a need for them. Also, it's unclear what "paying the proper amount of gp for material components" looks like. And finally, medium problem is using deck off-encounter, where Card can shuffle through deck to find any particular card and play it. Probably Card should have an ability to search for any particular card as 1 round or even better 1d2-round action.

There should also be rules to where Card can get another deck should she lose her current one, how her abilities are affected if only some cards of the deck are lost or destroyed, and how easy it is to destroy cards in deck (for example, if she holds five cards in hand, like a weapon, many DM's would allow sunder attack - and plain paper isn't up for a challenge). Anonymous, 03 October 2013

Rating

Power -4/5 i believe the advance card play ability is the only thing that seems FAR to powerful, at a 1 per 1 level is really unbalancing, the rest of the probility and randomness really makes this a classfor the gambling type characters, who wish to sit on the edge of there seat with each roll they get, the only saving grace is that it dosent have a full deck until level 20. --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 174.0.14.203 (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts.

Wording - 3/5 I give this class a 3 out of 5 because Its a tricky class to actually read, due to the fact, that seeing stuff between 'CARD' class and the CARDs you play, perhaps renaming the class to gambler would make it much easier --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 174.0.14.203 (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts.

Formatting - 5/5 I give this class a 5 out of 5 because Perfectly formatted to make it easy to see how things impact other things,how they get bonus's from dozens of things --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 174.0.14.203 (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts.

Flavor - 5/5 I give this class a 5 out of 5 because FANTASTIC, my party loved to fight thisclass as NPC and REALLY wanna see how this can play against other NPC's --—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 174.0.14.203 (talk • contribs) . Please sign your posts.

Rating

Balance - 4/5 I give this class a 4 out of 5 because although they have very powerful capabilities, they have serious drawbacks, as is the nature of chance. --67.86.181.137 09:05, 7 July 2014 (MDT)

Wording - 3/5 I give this class a 3 out of 5 because it was written decently, but there were some spelling/grammar mistakes and things that could have been made more clear --67.86.181.137 09:05, 7 July 2014 (MDT)

Formatting - 5/5 I give this class a 5 out of 5 because everything necessary was formatted well --67.86.181.137 09:05, 7 July 2014 (MDT)

Flavor - 5/5 I give this class a 5 out of 5 because it is different and more interesting than other base classes --67.86.181.137 09:05, 7 July 2014 (MDT)