Talk:Librarian (3.5e Class)

trying to make it better

I have seen this badly balanced class and fixed some of it. but it seems that is not enough to pass it as playable. I think it has to be changed from the top.

ideas

When I think 'librarian' in the dnd sense I think of something based off the Librarian movies (awesome BTW). I would suggest that you make this class a combo skill & minor spellcasting class, with a specialization in scrolls.

• Up the skill points to rogue level with the following added to current as class skills: autohypnosis, bluff, diplomacy, psicraft, use psionic device. All those extra skills to represent the fact that he studies everything.
• As far as spellcasting, I would (using wizard as a start here) double the number of 0-level per day at all levels. Reduce the spells per day of levels 1-4 by 1 at all levels (again based off wizard), spell levels 5-8 by 2 per day and level 9 by 3 per day (which means he wont get a 9th level spell till 20th level. This would represent that the pc is gaining magical ability through his arduous study, but lacks the focused training of a wizard.
• Owning to his wide field of study, I would suggest the pc be able to freely use all scrolls, arcane or divine, with equal facility. He could only make arcane scrolls. I would also suggest that, as part of scroll mastery, when activating an arcane scroll the spell is cast at his class caster level, if his level is higher than the minimum needed. I think a chance to do the same for divine scrolls is ok too, but I would make it require a caster level check (DC=scroll’s caster level + 5); failure would cast the spell as normal and a botch would cause a mishap.
• I might put in the trapfinding ability of a rogue for finding magical symbol, glyphs and other writing based traps only, and then allow the use of the disable device skill to disable/dispell those traps only.

--Elohim (talk) 08:24, 27 July 2014 (MDT)

nice ideas

I butchered the original class. I find it much better now that it has one spellcasting class balanced BAB and saves. 8+int for skills seemed like a bit too much so i decided to go with 4+int since it now has a sort of a skill focus feat.

Rating

Balance - 5/5 I give this class a 5 out of 5 because it seems to fit with the rest of the good classes --89.164.121.191 20:18, 27 July 2014 (MDT)

Wording - 5/5 I give this class a 5 out of 5 because I found it to be good --89.164.121.191 20:18, 27 July 2014 (MDT)

Formatting - 5/5 I give this class a 5 out of 5 because everything fits --89.164.121.191 20:18, 27 July 2014 (MDT)

Flavor - 5/5 I give this class a 5 out of 5 because it is great for roleplaying and I cannot give it any higher then 5 --89.164.121.191 20:18, 27 July 2014 (MDT)

Was this put on the wrong talk page? Marasmusine (talk) 01:45, 28 July 2014 (MDT)

I'd say it's been put on the right talk page. To be honest cant wait to test it in a dnd campaign with my friends.

Oh, I thought it was a mistake because it's obviously not a 5/5/5/5 page. I mean, at the time, there was no campaign information at all (it's still very light), so how could flavour be a 5? And there's still no Epic information. Here's how I'd put it:

Balance - 3/5 I give this class a 3 out of 5 because the Circles seem like a random grab-bag of features, allowing 5 bonus class feats is too versatile --Marasmusine (talk) 01:37, 29 July 2014 (MDT)

Wording - 3/5 I give this class a 3 out of 5 because there are grammatical errors throughout, and some features have confused wording (Archive as written allows the PC to add non-spellcasting Class levels to the knowledge check bonus?) --Marasmusine (talk) 01:37, 29 July 2014 (MDT)

Formatting - 3/5 I give this class a 4 out of 5 because it follows the preload formatting, but is missing wikilinks throughout and is missing Epic levels. --Marasmusine (talk) 01:37, 29 July 2014 (MDT)

Flavor - 2/5 I give this class a 3 out of 5 because the campaign information is very light, conveying almost no information. There's no starting package and no example NPC. Features such as evasion, uncanny dodge and bonus Strength do not seem to fit the theme and step on the roles of other classes. --Marasmusine (talk) 01:37, 29 July 2014 (MDT)

RE Point taken there should be some changes.

Rating

Balance - 3/5 I give this class a 3 out of 5 because it has several strong and interesting mechanical concepts, but execution of these concepts needs work. The Spell per Day table is built very similarly to that of a wizard, but caps higher on the low-end than wizards. Reducing the number of spells per day available would go a long way toward balancing this class. Personally I'd like to see 4 per day of all but 8th and 9th level spells, by level 20.

"Archive" is interesting, in that it puts the class on track for being a decent caster/decent skillmonkey, but I think it grows too rapidly. By 10th level, between int mod, a few ranks in knowledges and the benefit of "Archive", you're still looking at +18 (assuming 18 intelligence score) which is very high. I would say +1/two class levels rounded down of a class with the feature, would temper this well.

Scribe Scroll should just be granted as a bonus feat in my opinion, and used as the feat.

"Researching secret circles" should offer more Librarian-centric benefits (Textual Trapfinding is something I saw). Options could be to use scrolls regardless of racial/class based prereqs, doubling the speed of scribe scroll, maybe even slightly reducing costs of scroll production. As it stands, many of the benefits seem out of place at best, and very overpowered at worst (See: Permanent True Seeing by level 16).

I like the idea of "Knowledge to skill", but this needs refinement as well. I'd say do either/or with +2 bonuses or adding class skill (ala "Choose a skill. Add that skill to your list of Librarian class skills, or gain a +2 competence bonus in that skill.") --108.80.45.56 12:44, 12 January 2015 (MST)

Wording - 2/5 I give this class a 2 out of 5 because I found the wording to be understandable, but poorly put together. The wording & structure of "Research secret circles" is unclear. It is never clearly stated whether only the current circle is available, or if new circles are just "unlocked", and their feats are just added to the selection pool. One pet peeve that I've developed through reading this is how you refer to the class as "Librarian" instead of "the Librarian". I had clarity issues fairly regularly. --108.80.45.56 12:44, 12 January 2015 (MST)

Formatting - 3/5 I give this class a 3 out of 5 because I felt it met the minimum requirements, but saw several important errors, and several missing entries (as of the time of this writing, there is no Sample Librarian). You should capitalize the titles of your class features. For example: "Researching secret circles" looks better as "Researching Secret Circles". I would consult the formatting guide and get a little nitpicky, were I to improve this. --108.80.45.56 12:44, 12 January 2015 (MST)

Flavor - 2/5 I give this class a 2 out of 5 because between the flavor worked into the class features, and the minimal flavor subheadings, there is next to nothing interesting about this class in a flavor sense. Religion could be made a lot more interesting, by showing how Librarians might worship a token variety of gods. It would be very interesting, for instance, to look into the way Librarians of Vecna might operate, and how they'd be perceived by others of their class.

Most importantly, there's nothing that really shows why this class has the powers that it does. How does an ordinary, run of the mill Commoner rise up to become a first level Librarian? If you can, consult the Player's Handbook, go through the class entry for any skill, and look at all the roleplay fodder offered there. Compared that to this, and a player doesn't have nearly as much to work with. --108.80.45.56 12:44, 12 January 2015 (MST)