In my previous post about character building, I used an existing World of Warcraft character, my Undead Rogue, Darsino. Thanks to the existence of both the Revenant ancestry and the mystical aspect of the game's Rogue analogue, the Shadow, Darsino's shadowy teleportation (being Subtlety in WoW) translated surprisingly well into this system.
It seems like it will be a bit harder to directly translate other characters with the rules we have so far, so I'm going to try starting from scratch in this case.
Elementalists are the closest to your Wizard/Sorcerer analogue, with an encouragement to focus on particular damage types. To step back toward WoW, I also feel like they could fit pretty well as the equivalent of Shamans, though probably more toward the ranged-caster Elemental Shaman rather than the melee-with-magic Enhancement.
We're looking at a Reason-focused class, but just as I'd encourage D&D players to be creative about how knowledge is kept and passed down (a "library" could take many forms) I also don't think we need to necessarily go for the classic cloistered bookworm.
In fact, I think we're going to err instead on the side of someone a little closer to that WoW Shaman archetype - someone in tune with the elements on a spiritual level, probably preferring to live far from civilization. We're also probably not going to go with the Green subclass, which errs more toward the Druidic, life-based elementalism. Here, we're instead going to go for the primal, primordial elements.
Air might be the ideal element to focus on, as I imagine it will have the power of storms and lightning (when I watched Avatar the Last Airbender a few years ago, it always struck me as wrong that the Firebenders got to use lightning, as this feels like it's a key tool for air-based elemental powers. But I guess it helped make the Firebenders seem more threatening). But unfortunately, we don't yet have rules for that subclass. So, instead, we're going to go to the ultimate base element that all other things rest upon - Earth.
In my mind, our Elementalist is a nomad or hermit - possibly connected to a community as a kind of remote source of wisdom. Earth, of course, is everywhere, but when I think of places that really emphasize earth as an element, I think mostly of deserts - the kind of desert in the American Southwest that has massive stone buttes and mesas revealed by ancient long-dried bodies of water. That hot, dry, brown or orange stone would be the basis of their powers.
Ancestry
While there are some features for the Hakaan that are intriguing for a seer or wise-man, we don't really have the lore to fully understand their nature. Thus, I'm drawn to either Humans or Orcs. Human because humans in Draw Steel actually have a distinct ability to sense supernatural things around them. Orcs, because... well, deserts and living rough in the wilderness and honestly just that Warcraft shaman feel.
Let's go Human.
As a human, we get Detect the Supernatural, allowing us to sense the location of a supernatural object, an Undead or Construct or extraplanar creature within 5 squares of us. We also get Resist the Supernatural, which gives us 2 immunity to Magic and Psionic, going up by 1 each level (I assume this covers all abilities with those tags). Finally, we get two extra Recoveries, on top of the 10 we get from our class.
Culture
We've already sketched out what our Culture is, in vague terms - we're that odd but respected guy who lives on the outskirts of our community while also serving an important role. It's probably not really a spiritual leadership position, but maybe we've got some revered position like "Earthcaller," called upon to defend the community and perhaps read the elements and signs from nature to advise the community on mundane things like when to harvest crops or what weather to prepare for.
For Environment, we'll probably say Wilderness, as we live by what the desert provides us, and the pride of our culture is the ability to survive and thrive in this harsh environment. We'll be able to pick up a skill from either the Crafting or Exploration list.
For Organization, Communal seems the best option - this is someone who lives amongst a people who must share their burdens and their resources to survive. We'll thus get a Crafting or Interpersonal skill.
For Upbringing, the option isn't terribly obvious - as a community protector, we could go with the Martial upbringing, but I think even if it leans a little cliche for our Wizard-like class, Academic probably works better, as a source of knowledge for the community. This gets us a Lore skill.
Career
And here, we've got to go with Sage. I suppose we could build a backstory that really emphasized the role of a mentor - something like a singular position passed down in this community, which could fit the Mage's Apprentice. But I think we're going to skew for an older character who is already this community's Sage.
This gives us two Lore skills (getting us up to three, and surely more with our class) and an additional language (a step I'm skipping for these for now until I know more about Draw Steel's assumed setting and cultures). We get 100 Project Points (which I believe can be used for crafting - essentially I believe this is a head start on such efforts) and a Title: Expert Sage, which allows us to roll twice on any test as part of a research or crafting project with a skill we have from the lore skill group (nice that we're getting a lot of lore skills).
Class
So, we're an Elementalist. At our baseline, we get a Reason and Intuition both of 2, and then we can choose how to distribute our other attributes. I think, given our earthen emphasis, we could stand to take a penalty to our Agility (in a system without an armor class, Agility is less crucial than D&D's Dexterity). Thus, I think we'll take a 1 in Strength and Presence, giving us:
Strength 1, Agility -1, Reason 2, Intuition 2, Presence 1
We start off with 15 Stamina, and we have 12 Recoveries (two of which come from being human) which each heal us for 5 stamina.
We will gain the Magic skill, and can choose any three skills from the Crafting or Lore lists. As before, let's pick our skills now:
Magic (we get this automatically,) Nature and Monsters (which we'll gain from the Sage career,) and then I think we'll leave behind lore skills. Correction: we get one more from Academic. Let's pick up Culture, as we're probably a keeper of traditions and such. Next, we'll pick up Mechanics as our Crafting skill (from our Communal organization - maybe we help maintain windmills or water pumps for our community). We'll take Endurance as an Exploration skill (from our Wilderness background) because that seems very important in a resource-sparse environment.
Now, back to class features.
Our Heroic Resource is Essence. We get 2 Essence at the start of each of our turns, but outside of combat, we sort of "idle" at an amount of Essence equal to our Victories, and it only takes one minute for essence expended out of combat to reset to this value. If we want to maintain a persistent effect (a feature we'll touch on) outside of combat, we can simply lower that "idle" level for each essence being spent on persistent effects.
We gain Hurl Element as a ranged free attack, which has a range of 5 squares and can deal a modest (2, 6, or 9) amount of damage, the type of whih we choose when we use it, able to deal acid, cold, corruption, fire, lightning, poison, or sonic damage.
Next, we gain Persistent Magic, which allows certain abilities to continue to be in effect until combat ends (and as mentioned above, we can maintain them outside of combat if we have victories to pay their Persistent Value).
If we take damage, we need to make a Reason Power Roll to maintain the effects - on a tier 1, we lose any we have up. On tier 2, if we only have one ability active, it simply remains active. If we have multiple abilities, we lose one of them. On a tier 3, we retain all of our persistent effects.
We then get Practical Magic, a Maneuver that can allow us to do a few things: we can use the Knockback Manuever using Reason instead of Might, within a distance of our Hurl Element feature. Alternatively, we can choose a creature within our Hurl Magic range and deal damage to them equal to our Reason score (again, this is a Manuever, so we can potentially get some extra damage in on top of our Hurl Element or other abilities). The damage can be the same types as Hurl Element. Finally, the third use of this is that we can teleport a number of squares equal to our Reason score.
Next, we get our Earth subclass feature, which is Manipulate Earth.
For 2 Essence and an action, we can, within our melee reach, create one of three effects:
We can touch a square of mundane dirt, stone, or metal and create a 5 wall (in other words, I believe, a wall that is made of five contiguous squares, one of which needs to be the targeted space). Alternatively, we can touch a structure of mundane dirt, metal, or stone that takes up at least 2 squares, and we can open a 1-square opening in that structure. Finally, we can touch a doorway or other opening in a structure of those materials, the opening being no larger than 1 square, and we can seal it up with the same material.
We can also use this ability without spending Essence if we spend a full uninterrupted minute using the ability while we're within reach. (So, basically it's free outside of combat, and won't require 2 victories).
We also get an Earth-subclass Triggered Action. This is Earthen Force, which we can use on ourselves or an ally within 5 squares. When the target makes a melee attack, we can add damage to that attack equal to 3 times our Reason score (so, 6 at this level). If we spend 1 Essence, we can add extra damage equal to 4 times our Reason score instead and also push the target a number of squares equal to our Reason score.
Essentially, this triggered action is going to let us super-power an ally's melee attack. While we'll see if we wind up taking anything melee-focused, we probably want to use this on our melee friends instead.
Now, we pick our Signature Ability.
Among our options, the only Earth-based one is Debris, which is pretty cool. Within 5 squares, we can hit a 3 cube (in other words, a 3x3 square on the map) and all enemies (it won't hit allies) each take some minor damage (just 2, 3, or 4) and the area becomes difficult terrain for our enemies. Naturally, this won't be all that great against a single target, but it might really help us control our enemies movement and do a good job against swarming foes. I really picture this as rock shards shooting up out of the ground, and then becoming a bunch of heavy stones to trudge through.
We'll also get a 3-Essence ability and a 5-Essence ability (the class chart actually says we get a 1-Essence ability, but I don't see any). While I'm really tempted to keep sticking with the Earth abilities, let's be a little more experimental here. Stare into the Abyss is a persistent AoE damage option, while Burn! is a persistent single-target option. I think given that our Signature is already an AoE, we'll get something we can focus-fire with, so we'll pick up Burn! This has a range of 5, and does 6/8/13 damage. It has a Persistent Value of 1, so we can easily maintain this while still building our Essence on each turn - as long as the target is still in range while this persists, we can roll for damage at the start of each of our turns.
Now, for our 5-Essence ability, we've gotta go back to our Earth theme because Open the Earth is pretty freaking awesome. Within 5 squares, we open up four holes with 2-square openings that are 6 squares deep on any mundane surface. (We can also place them next to each other to make one big 4-square hole). For each creature standing above a hole that is small enough to fall into it. Tier 1, the target can shift up to 1 square from the edge of the hole to the nearest unoccupied space of their choice (I wonder if boxing them in can prevent them from getting out of the way?) At tier 2, they fall into the hole (I don't recall the rules for falling damage). Tier 3, they fall into the hole and cannot reduce the height of the fall. We can maintain this as a persistent effect, opening up a new hole at the start of each turn (PV 1). As far as I can tell, the holes simply remain there after you cast this spell, regardless of whether you keep it persisting.
Kit
I think the Kit that makes the most sense here is probably Nature Calling, as it really gives a sense of being this Earthspeaker role. We get a Stability bonus of 1 (so we get knocked back less by monsters) and our Magic Distance bonus is +7 (meaning most of our abilities go up to 12 squares).
Our Kit signature ability is Lightning Spark, which has a range of 12 (again, I assume this incorporates the bonus distance) and lets us shoot a spark of lighting at a foe or object, making a Power+Reason roll. Tier 1 we do a modest 2 lightning damage. Tier 2, we deal 6 damage and also put a bane on the target's next power roll. Tier 3, the target takes 9 damage and gets a double bane on their next power roll.
Our Kit Ward - a passive feature that we get as long as we're alive and wearing the kit - is Spirit Ward. This gives us an Edge on resistance rolls. Additionally, when an enemy damages us with a melee ability, we deal psychic damage to them equal to our highest characteristic (likely Reason, and thus 2). The flavor here is that we're surrounding by protective animal spirits, which feels like it really ties into the shaman vibes we've got here.
Breaking it Down:
I think our Elementalist is going to be very good at crowd-control, even if they're not really as focused on damage output. Between Manipulate Earth and Open the Earth, we can really build and demolish parts of the battlefield to keep our enemies separated from one another and divide and conquer.
Building these characters, I wonder very much how leveling up is going to feel. I know we'll start seeing features that spend more of our Heroic Resources, but I'm curious to see how many non-choice features we get at each level. Presumably there is going to be some way to generate resources faster, because if we're at the start of an adventure at level 5 and we're facing monsters with, say, 5 times as much Stamina, it'll take a long time for us to build up the requisite resources to take them down, unless resources start to build faster at higher levels, or even our cheap abilities start to deal more damage.
Once again, I think the complexity here is more in the building than in the playing - the real difference from D&D is that there's really no distinction in complexity between martial and caster classes. Casters will thus probably feel far more constrained while martial characters will feel liberated in their options.
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