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Hey everyone, today I’m posting something that I’ve been working on behind the scenes for a while now - The Vessel Class! This class is the first draft, so I am very interested to see what you all think! Is it wildly unbalanced? Is it comically underpowered? Check it out and let me know (please)!

THE VESSEL

Vessels are mortals who bear an otherworldly Sealed Spirit within their soul, and through training can unlock the power of their Spirit through various Unsealed Aspects, Vessel Magic, and finally their Archon Form transformation!

Mechanically, the Vessel is a Charisma-based Half-caster that uses a modified version of the Warlock’s Pact Magic alongside a transformation mechanic.

This class is pretty out there (even for me), so I’m very interested in feedback!

Files

The Vessel Class by laserllama

A ragged young man fled down an alley in a vain attempt to lose the thugs that pursued him. As their shadows grew longer, he realized that he had no choice. As the ruffians pinned him against the wall, he looked inward and called upon the sinister entity bound to his soul.

Comments

Anonymous

I love this class, but I believe it needs to be updated, and slightly overpowered. If you need to transform into your Archon Form more than once per short rest, I believe you should be able to do so more often as you gain levels, instead of wasting your so limited spell slots. Speaking of which, I understand you removed cantrips to keep the Vessel consistent with rangers and paladins, but the artificer is also a half-caster and not only he receives spells at 1st level, but he can cast cantrips, too! I hope you will be able to release the next update really soon!

Anonymous

Definitely interesting. I'm useless when it comes to balancing, but a few things I noticed were that Dire Stature appears to imply that it can be taken multiple times, though it doesn't specifically say that. The Ascended spell action includes four of the five common damage types, leaving poison out. Could be intentional, but it caught my eye, so I thought I'd mention it. Once you use Controlled Transformation to pause the Archon form and its HP, does the 1 minute timer start over, or does the remaining time (assuming a 6 second round) pause too? Looking forward to seeing how this evolves in the future.

laserllama

Great feedback - glad you like the concept! For Dire Stature, you can only take it once, but I wanted it to be able to stack with spells like enlarge/reduce or the new UA Goliath's feature that lets them grow one size. Now your party can work together to make you a Kaiju! For the Ascended Archon I did leave poison out on purpose - the other types seem more "Arcane" to me (and poison didn't fit with the formatting...) Controlled Transformation would reset your 1 minute timer each time you use it - the Hit Points would just stay the same.

Anonymous

I'm SO excited for this

Anonymous

I love it! Actually fits perfectly for a character concept I already had. A few minor notes that may or may not have already been commented on: There's a typo in Iridescent Strike (cloak your empty or foot hand). Twin Soul feels redundant (and thus weak for an 18th level feature) given how controlled transformation works. I know it does provide the benefit of ignoring the 1 minute timer, but I feel like that might not come up much. I like Shimmering Lance thematically, but it feels weak to me. You might even be able to get away with making it a cantrip if you make no other changes. Otherwise, I'd up the damage. I'm so excited to see this class grow! *Edit* Just realized Lance includes spell ability modifier damage. Definitely too strong to cantrip unless you dropped that part, but probably still too weak for a first level.

Jeff Potato

Flaming Whip has a casting time of "1 attack." Should that be "1 action" or "1 bonus action?" Or is it actually meant to be something you can cast in place of a single attack (so that someone with Extra Attack could summon the whip and then attack with it once on their turn)? Also, does grappling someone with your Flaming Whip prevent you from attacking other enemies with the whip? Or can you just keep entangling more people with it? Also, Shimmering Lance doesn't seem very strong. I guess converting your ally's next attack into radiant damage has some niche uses, but 90% of the time I'd rather have Guiding Bolt.

laserllama

Thanks for checking out the class! - Flaming Whips cast time should be “one bonus action” - that was a typo on my part. - Yes - you can only grapple one creature at a time. I’ll clarify that - Shimmering Lance could definitely use some buffs to differentiate it from guiding bolt. I’ve got some stuff in mind! As you can tell, spell design isn’t my forte!

Jeff Potato

My current impression is that the Fallen is probably the strongest subclass overall -- it looks like Spiritual Weapon is the best use for a bonus action that a Vessel is likely to find, and Spirit Guardians is *great* for anyone going into melee. But I might be missing something here. (I guess Dire Stature would have good synergy with the Cursed's larger number of claw attacks, and the Fallen only doing one damage type with their main attack can be troublesome even if it's a very good damage type.) I should probably try building a few characters and see how they shake out. EDIT: I keep forgetting that the Cursed gets Fireball.

Anonymous

Hey, I'll start playtesting the class with my group next week It looks great thematically, I'll have more feedback later I just have a question, do you plan on adding even more subclasses in the future?

laserllama

Awesome to hear! I definitely have a ton of ideas for subclasses - you could easily have one for each creature type (and more). I'll probably add a few in the next update (whenever that happens).

Anonymous

Does Vessel Magic count as Pact Magic regards feat prerequisite?

Anonymous

Eldritch Adept and Metamagic Adept, both in Tasha's Cauldron of Everything.