Talk:Onmyōji (3.5e Class)

So this article has been up for a while and i have been using this class in a long running and ongoing campaign, i have decided to share my thoughts on the class as it has worked over the years. keep in mind that the dm has helped with making this class abit more streamlined in his game but that might not be the creators intention.

one, in my game due to the pages wording the spellcasting stat has been changed to just charisma, i don't think there are any classes that require two seperate stats to be upgraded for a reason.

outside of that this class is pretty straight forward with what it wants to be, you are a summoner who specializes in hunting creatures that fall into the spirit category. you don't need to fuse two spirits together though it would be nice if there was more incentive to fuse the two. due to the nature of the class however when we get to epic levels the spirits can't be further improved. overall though this class is somewhat balanced around needing specific weapons and the spirits abilities being pretty mundane in the grand scheme of things, if there is some ground breaking combo im missing feel free to let me know but i like it.

Thanks for the feedback! It makes me really happy that someone has used one of my classes. The "split" spellcasting stat is meant to be similar to how the Favored Soul works; there is precedent for a class using one stat for DCs and another for stat requirements and bonus spells. Favored Souls use Cha for the stat reqs and bonus spells, but use Wis for DCs. I think Spirit Shaman and possibly some other Complete X casters might use it as well. It's probably fine if you want to skip that though; it was kinda meant as a balancing lever for having access to healing spells as an arcane full caster (on top of having 3/4 BAB).

There isn't really meant to be a super busted combo; the 'concept' of the class was that the casting is super flexible (you aren't limited by spells known or prepared, as you get to prepare your spells ad hoc. So you get to 'know' your whole spell list like a Wizard, but can cast any of them at any time like a Sorcerer). In exchange, they take longer to cast as you have to essentially 'prepare' each spell as you cast it. That'd feel pretty buns to do all the time, though, so the spirit and weapon talismans are meant to give you a suite of go-to options for combat that you always have at the ready, with the elements being largely for flavor.

That's also where the 'dual type' Shikigami are; being both is mostly a flavor thing and an explanation for what to do with the Summon Natures Ally options that inherently have a 'type', like a Salamander. I wanted players to be able to chose those, but wanted to give the option to do something "cool" like have a "Water Elemental of Purity" rather than that being a more powerful option. It *might* be fine to give a dual-type spirit both sets of bonuses, but I don't want players for feel forced to use SNA options that have an elemental type just so they can get that power, so I went with the 'safer' route. Overall though, the bonuses for the Shikigami are probably the part of the class I'm least satisfied with; I'd rather keep the "split attribute" casting and buff the Shikigami element stuff to make it worth the downside (basically buff the strengths rather than "streamlining away" weaknesses). If you've got any suggestions for more interesting Elemental Spirits bonuses, I'd love to hear them. I definitely played it safe with the abilities (because I didn't want one of Water/Fire/Air/Earth to end up way better than another), but maybe it's better if they did specialize more. Maybe the spirits could "carry" people, providing flight (for Air), water transport (for Water), moving through the ground with a dig speed (for Earth), and protection from heat and cold, such as crossing lava or whatnot (for Fire).

Regarding Epic Levels, is the Fortify Spirit bonus not keeping up, or did you mean that the elemental bonuses don't continue to improve? Reading your comment initially I thought I must not have added any extra HD scaling at epics. I'd love to hear more of your thoughts on using the class! Zau (talk) 21:15, 27 May 2024 (MDT)