Two points:
Firstly, I agree with Ascalaphus: cheating fate but having the risk that it comes back to bite you in the ass sounds EXCELLENT. I love situations in roleplaying where you're in a such a tight spot that you take a gamble that could pay of big or doom you all... so why not permanently have that option open to the player. Good stuff.
Second point: the above aside, I'm currently finding the class quite confusing and dense in application. I understand it's still a work in progress being put together, but whilst the concept is clear and flavourful, the application is doing my head in. So, whatever you're working on to build this awesome concept, remember that a rules gimmick is only as good as the gameplay gimmicks it enables.
All that being said, dot.
So far it is looking good, but yes, there is a lot of meat here and it really does lend itself to a lot of cool stuff.
The basis of the class itself hasn't changed, just the extra goodies that fluff it out and give it some more options. Your hand and cards are basically your spells but can go a little further since every time you use one of your higher level cards it allows you to shuffle used lower cards back into the deck giving the class a bit of self sustain.
The various sub systems are what are in flux right now. One allows you to select a small number of spontaneous spells you discard cards to cast. Another allows you to tell a fortune for a creature (deciding when you do, whether it is good or ill...but it still has the possibility of reversing that if you're unlucky based on the roll). Then you have all the other stuff that is being proposed and suggested.
Anyway, it is looking really cool and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing it complete though it could take awhile yet. :)
*edit* Forgot to say, I sorta like the name. Not a huge fan of soothsayer, doesn't feel as thematic or impressive. Ovate or Haruspex are pretty cool though.
The haruspex has the same issue as the augur. Whereas the augur looks to portents for divine favor, the haruspex looks at entrails. There's no cards in there. The ovate, for its part, is similarly confusable given the word's modern definition of herbalist.
Beyond that, my primary issue is that the sayers of sooth with such names are the sorts that I would expect to tell fate as it is. The internal mechanics, however, have a great deal of fate manipulation. It's less seer, more carnymancer.
Consider, the class doesn't play with a full tarot deck. Why? Because the class wants to manipulate fate by cutting pieces of it out. When telling an individual's fortune, he can choose to make the fortune good or bad before rolling to see how it manifests itself (and yes, it can change from good to bad or bad to good against your will). When dealing with the pared down deck of fate that he has chosen to use, he can manipulate it further, but fate can get upset and smack him around a bit. In the end, though, he doesn't treat fate as a big, magnificent thing with an ineffable source. It's merely another quantity to be manipulated.
The seedy, grinning fellow who flips the cards to make your fortune what he wants it to be, but just so happens to have the power to make it happen -- is that our soothsayer, or is he something else?
Huh, apparently, cartomancer refers to divinatory tarot using a 52 card deck rather than a 78 card deck. We have a winner!
Not fond of Cartomancer honestly, but it's easy enough to just to switch the name for my home games anyway since it is apparantly more fitting than the others.
I'd like it... though sadly couldn't do it over skype very easily
Serious question here, Zwordsman. How's about I build you a set file for use with Apprentice? It's a tiny little program for playing Magic: the Gathering and other TCGs over the internet. I believe it predates Magic Workstation and is totally free to use. If your GM is up to it, he could link for a 1v1 "match" while you Skype and he can keep tabs on the state of your deck and hand.
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The cartomancer is about ready to set sail now that 2,000 words of the best feats I've ever made are now a thing. This class plays much like my own personal TCG playstyle, which is the gimmicky combo player. With the right feat selection, you can have stupid little bonuses coming out your ears. With another feat selection, you can negate most of the negative luck effects that come from messing with fate and turn the class into, "pitch three cards, shoot a dude for excessive damage at will."
In other words, the luck of the draw only controls about half of the cartomancer's power, and you can choose to focus on that half and negate your dependence on the luck if you really want to do so. There's also a purely luck-dependent class feature that falls into the "bardic performance" design space and can be comboed with feats and integrated abilities to help you spread a lucky roll throughout the party, or an unlucky roll throughout your enemies.
Here's a sample! I hope you can see the combos coming into being without knowing what seals or the other 20 feats are.
Concatenated Sacrifice
The realization was sudden. If a seal requires portents as fuel, how many least portents would make a lesser portent? The answer, it turns out, is three.
Prerequisite: Efficient Seal, Extra Seal, maximum hand size of 4 or higher
Benefit: Whenever you use a seal, you may discard three least portents and treat it as though you discarded a lesser portent. Similarly, you may discard three lesser portents and treat it as though you discarded a greater portent. Using this ability increases the fate point cost of the seal by +1.
Fate by Association
A powerful cartomancer learns not only how to influence the fate of others based on the fortunes she tells, but also how to spread that individual's awakened luck or misfortune to others.
Prerequisite: Fortuneteller, manipulate fortune class feature
Benefit: As a standard action, you can expend a use of your tell fortune class feature to spread all bonuses, and penalties, that your rolls on Table: Tell Fortune Outcomes have caused to a single creature within 30 feet to all other creatures within 10 feet of that creature. It does not matter whether these bonuses or penalties are the result of the tell fortune class feature, the seal of the read palm, or the random happenstances that occur to you whenever you spend fate points; they all spread. Each creature to which the bonuses and penalties are being spread is entitled to a DC 10 + 1/2 your cartomancer level + your Charisma modifier Will save to negate their spread. Once spread, the bonuses and penalties last for rounds equal to your Charisma modifier.
Fortunate Dealer
You are capable of eliminating the negative effects of fate upon yourself.
Prerequisite: Lucky Dealer, maximum hand size 4 or larger
Benefit: Penalties imposed upon you by rolls on Table: Tell Fortune Outcomes are insight bonuses instead. They are still treated as penalties for the purpose of duration reduction by the Lucky Dealer feat and are spread as penalties by the Fate by Association feat.
Normal: Penalties imposed upon you by rolls on Table: Tell Fortune Outcomes are penalties.
Morning Rush
Some cartomancers, such as you, just live for that first mark of the day.
Prerequisite: Ability to place a greater portent into your active deck
Benefits: When you shuffle your discard pile and hand into your active deck and draw new cards for the beginning of the day, you draw until you have cards in your hand equal to two greater than your maximum hand size. Whenever you have no cards in your hand, it is a full-round action to draw a card rather than a move action.
Normal: When you shuffle your discard pile and hand into your active deck and draw new cards for the beginning of the day, you draw until you have cards in your hand equal to your maximum hand size.
Recycler of Fate
Seals, being a fairly inefficient way to use the power of fate, can have part of their wasted energy reclaimed by savvy cartomancers.
Prerequisite: Seals class feature
Benefit: Whenever you use a seal, return a card containing a least portent from your discard pile to your hand. This ability can cause you to exceed your maximum hand size, but cannot be used if your maximum hand size is already exceeded.
So very much looking forward to this release. Those few feats don't really even capture how awesome and customizable the class really is!
Disclaimer: That's the guy what asked me for the class in the first place.
I am just coming into this thread so this might have been brought up already, but I would suggest the use a "normal" deck of poker cards. Many people have them and if not they can be bought for cheap.
While it might be cool to have each card do something, I would break it down to themes. Clubs do a type of effect, spades another, hearts another, and diamonds another. Then the value of the card would have an effect.
Are the cards drawn as the power is invoked? Or are they determined earlier, like during the "spell preparation" period? This makes a big difference on how they would be used.
If you draw them while invoking the power to figure out what it will do or if it is successful, this is really just a variation to rolling a die. Sure, probability is different, especially if you do not shuffle each round, but otherwise it is just a randomization variant.
But if you draw them when "preparing" your powers, well that is different. The player has X cards in his/her hand and then spends them as the character activates a power. "I play my 2 of Hearts" is kind of like casting a spell. But this has me wondering about game balance. You might get lucky and draw cool cards one time and draw crappy cards another day.
Alternately if your cards are predetermined from class abilities or choices, I do not see why you would even bother with the cards. It would be just like having spells or spell-like abilities, only with the addition of needing a deck of cards.
So, what exactly are you trying to do? Will a deck of cards add to that? The idea can be intriguing but I wonder how playable it really is.
I am just coming into this thread so this might have been brought up already, but I would suggest the use a "normal" deck of poker cards. Many people have them and if not they can be bought for cheap.
While it might be cool to have each card do something, I would break it down to themes. Clubs do a type of effect, spades another, hearts another, and diamonds another. Then the value of the card would have an effect.
Are the cards drawn as the power is invoked? Or are they determined earlier, like during the "spell preparation" period? This makes a big difference on how they would be used.
If you draw them while invoking the power to figure out what it will do or if it is successful, this is really just a variation to rolling a die. Sure, probability is different, especially if you do not shuffle each round, but otherwise it is just a randomization variant.
But if you draw them when "preparing" your powers, well that is different. The player has X cards in his/her hand and then spends them as the character activates a power. "I play my 2 of Hearts" is kind of like casting a spell. But this has me wondering about game balance. You might get lucky and draw cool cards one time and draw crappy cards another day.
Alternately if your cards are predetermined from class abilities or choices, I do not see why you would even bother with the cards. It would be just like having spells or spell-like abilities, only with the addition of needing a deck of cards.
So, what exactly are you trying to do? Will a deck of cards add to that? The idea can be intriguing but I wonder how playable it really is.
Hey there, Seeley. Let me know if this isn't clear enough, as it'll be hard to explain without handing you a copy of the class itself.
There are 54 abilities, each tied to a card in a standard joker-inclusive poker deck. As cartomancy, the use of poker cards for divination, has no static meanings for the cards, I have organized them to make them easier to tell apart at a glance rather than thematically.
Every morning, you are able to build an active deck from the poker deck. That is to say, at level 7, you can build a deck containing 10 weak cards, 4 medium cards, and 1 strong card. The other 39 cards do not get used. (Unless you use some of the weirder feats, but more on that if you buy the class. Seriously, stuff gets nuts in the feats section.) In this way, the class is an active deckBUILDING class. From the deck you built, you will maintain a hand of cards. This starts at a hand of 2 and builds up to 6. There is a feat to get +1 hand size. It cannot be taken multiple times for several balance reasons.
You can draw a card once a round. It's a move action. You also have ways to cast a second portent as a move action, but only under certain conditions. Of course, you can always draw a card as a swift action if you spend a point from a fairly-limited "ki" (fate) pool you have sitting around. Decisions, decisions.
Does this mean you can be screwed and not have something useful to do? Yep, which is why you also have seals. There are 12 seals and you learn 5 of them by the time you hit level 18. A seal lets you discard a card and spend fate points for an alternate effect, say direct damage or a 1-round temporary hit point shield of mammoth proportions (Can anyone say tarot tank?). The higher the power level of the discarded card, the stronger the seal.
Yes, each poker card is a specific spell. If you use a poker deck, or a tarot deck, as they are also supported, expect to be reliant upon the PDF. In addition to support for physical cards you have sitting around, the class will have a print-and-play component that will allow you to cut out your deck, sleeve it, and play it with the entire spell description on the card.
High level players may require two poker decks. Just saying. Dupes of low power cards are allowed starting at level 11. Do you really, REALLY like one of your weak effects? Play with two "five of hearts" in the deck :)
In order to make poker and tarot use easier, there will be sets of tables that organize the 54 cards by power level, by poker suit, and by tarot suit, meaning there's always a most-efficient table out there for you no matter how you've decided to play the class.
The high power portents are the spades and the jokers. (15 spells)
The medium level portents are the clubs and the aces of diamonds and hearts (15 spells)
The low level portents are all of the red cards, minus the aces. (24 spells)
Less thematic, but easier to work with.
In terms of tarot, I did faithfully design abilities around each and every one of the major arcana. The rest of the tarot deck gets turned into an organization aide, much like the poker system shown above. There's only so many ways you can slice the pentacles, after all. As a compromise, there is a seal representing the essential nature of each of the four suits in tarot in the seals section. :)
The overall feel of the class matches the way I tend to build decks in TCGs. That is to say, if you like comboing out and weird interactions firing off left and right, you'll have a lot of fun. If you like stomping enemies with carefully selected abilities, the witch is over that-a-way and shame on you for ruining by combos.
Here's an example of a combo.
There's a seal you like. It costs 2 fate points, and since you only have 1/2 lvl + Wis mod fate points, you decided to spend a feat to drop it to 1 fate point. Much better. There's also a least portent that you really like, an ally gets to roll twice and take the highest on his next attack roll (swift to use, too!), so you took the feat that lets you bring a least portent from your discard pile to your hand every single time you fire off a seal. You pitch your lesser portents to power the seal because actually PLAYING a lesser portent would cause the least portent in your discard pile to shuffle into your deck, killing your recursion. So, for as long as you can keep it up, you can fire off a seal every round and have a nice little reroll in your hand to use every single round. When the lesser supply is exhausted, you play a greater portent to shuffle all the lessers into your deck and start all over. The only limits are the luck of the draw for seal sacrifices and your fate point pool, but you can always get +3 fate points in exchange for a feat.
Profit.
There's also fortunetelling and pushing fate can indeed bite you in the rear with nasty random penalties that stick around for a minute per level. There's a lot going on, but all of the inter-dependencies makes the class a heck of a lot more cohesive than it would otherwise be. Very, very proud of this one - might be my favorite piece of work yet :)
For those wanting a physical deck, I will NOT be offering one initially, though I will be once we're all sure that all of the abilities make sense as written. You know me - altering the product after the fact, and sometimes adding expansions for the hell of it (ethermancer and edgewalker), is a time-honored tradition. I'd rather not close the book on something this experimental before more than three people get a chance to see it and let me know how they feel about it.
I am only going to be making somewhere in the vicinity of $2.50 profit per deck sold, so don't expect any special bundle deals over at OneBookShelf. There's no margin for it. Frankly, paizo.com takes 10% less of the list price as commission and I'd love it if you did your PDF shopping here. As would the owners of this forum, I'm sure.
So, what's the page count looking like thus far? (barring card pages, I mean) :)
Well, I hit the favored class bonuses on page 7 and am adding one last feat to let you do a Three Card Monty. The feats should go for, geez, four pages easy, then we hit about ten pages of fully written out portents, ten pages of tables... 30-33 pages, I'd say.
Plus nine pages at the end for the print and play. Probably $8 to give it a whirl, maybe $8.50. Depends on whether or not I can control myself and stop. adding. feats!
Players have to sing the "Ace of Spades" song whenever they draw it.
The class sounds like it would be fun, but I would have to see it, and try it out, to see how it stacks up to the spellcasting classes. Is it roughly equal to a mid-range caster (Bard, Magus) or a full-caster (Wizard, Cleric)?
I'll leave this here. Everything from seals and tell fortune to simply drawing a bonus card forces you to roll on this table. It's a beating heart of chaos that you either learn to live with or harness to actively unleash through the use of feats.
Whenever you spend a fate point, roll a d20 for each point spent (Yes, some seals can force 3 or 4 rolls!). If you roll a 1, a 13, or a 20, you roll again and take the rolled bonus as a cumulative penalty instead for 1 minute per level. This is fate slapping you around for messing with it. Of course, if you roll a 1, a 13, or a 20 again when rolling for your penalty, it transforms into a bonus and fate's smackdown becomes a totally random buff. And yes, there's an expensive feat chain that culminates in all fate always being a bonus for you, because I can't. stop. writing. feats!
Table: Tell Fortune Outcomes
1 Roll again. If you intended to give a good fortune, it is now a bad fortune, and vice versa.
2 +1 insight bonus to the mark’s highest ability score (cartomancer chooses if tie)
3 +1 insight bonus to the mark’s lowest ability score (cartomancer chooses if tie)
4 +1 insight bonus to attack rolls
5 +1 insight bonus to initiative rolls
6 +1 insight bonus to damage rolls
7 +1 insight bonus to Strength-based skills
8 +1 insight bonus to Dexterity-based skills
9 +1 insight bonus to Constitution-based skills
10 +1 insight bonus to Intelligence-based skills
11 +1 insight bonus to Wisdom-based skills
12 +1 insight bonus to Charisma-based skills
13 Roll again. If you intended to give a good fortune, it is now a bad fortune, and vice versa.
14 +1 insight bonus to concentration checks
15 +1 insight bonus to AC
16 +1 insight bonus to Fortitude saves
17 +1 insight bonus to Reflex saves
18 +1 insight bonus to Will saves
19 +1 insight bonus to the DC of cantrips and orisons
20 Roll again. If you intended to give a good fortune, it is now a bad fortune, and vice versa.
Players have to sing the "Ace of Spades" song whenever they draw it.
The class sounds like it would be fun, but I would have to see it, and try it out, to see how it stacks up to the spellcasting classes. Is it roughly equal to a mid-range caster (Bard, Magus) or a full-caster (Wizard, Cleric)?
You'll play like a bard with more direct damage and a propensity to be as annoying as a guy who took one level of dual-cursed oracle for that blasted revelation.
Ah, and if I could get some opinions? Telling fortunes is the last thing I'm still fighting with here. I have a number of tell fortune abilities that pop up on the odd levels to fill in the cracks.
Normally, it's one roll for 10 minutes per level when you tell a fortune. At 3rd level, you can tell your own fortune. At 7th, you can pay to roll two dice. At 9th, you can pay to reroll. At 13th, the bonus (and penalty) jumps to +2. At 17th, you can tell fortunes really quickly.
To me, the scaling seems slow, particularly when it feels like a bardic performance. I know players will hate the -2 penalties randomly smacking them starting at level 13, though. Would you bother to roll to give an ally a pair of random +1 bonuses for an hour and a half at level 10 or should I go through and slap on a progression to +3?
This concept sounds amazing. Read through the whole thread and am really, really digging the feel of this class.
While I get that levels in the Cartomancer won't let you get into the Harrower PrC, will there be any synergy? I feel like if there's not, its a seriously wasted opportunity. Even if it doesn't mesh specially with the PrC, having some tie-in with Harrowing in general is a must, in my opinion.
Definitely looking forward to this!
Already supporting two types of deck. There's no harrowing, I'm afraid :/
Any chance for a later add-on pdf? I would spend several dollars($5?) for such a solid book.
Possible. Would need to research it. It just seemed that there was a lot there and it wouldn't have jived with the complexity I have here. Lines must be drawn and I know the brewmaster has left a lot of people wanting magical jams and jellies with none in sight.
The first expansion for this system, if it takes off, will be an archetype with its own deck called the Deathdealer. As the end of existence is part of the Fate of all things, even immortals, specialized cartomancers can be fairly terrifying necromancers.
The Deathdealer is already filling my mind with possibility. Please, oh please, make it so.
If you save enough lives that should have been snuffed out, you can always get a marut to pop in with a face like this -_-. Just saying.
Tell ya what, I'll add a feat for +1 to the insight bonus. That way, you can pay to make it better. It'll help support the luck spreader build.
Spending two feats will let you spend two uses of your class feature to give an ally a +3 insight bonus to three things for a little over two hours. Sounds good.
This feat should be popular :)
Three Card Monty
"Heads, I win. Tails, you lose."
Prerequisite: Cartomancy class feature, ability to place a greater portent into your active deck
Benefit: You gain a Monty deck. A Monty deck is built from cards in your collection, much like your active deck, and can be altered whenever you alter your active deck. A Monty deck must contain two least portents and a lesser portent. All of these portents must be able to target individuals other than just you. Once per day as a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity, spread the Monty deck face-down in front of the person who is playing a target creature within 30 feet. That person picks a card. If he picks the lesser portent, you cast it on the target as a free action. If he picks one of the least portents, reveal the rest of the cards and cast both of the least portents on the target as a free action. Once used, set the Monty set aside. It's its own separate thing. Do not put it in the discard pile.
I really, really love that feat. Definitely grinning at the possibilities with it!
The class was pretty overburdened before and I haven't seen the latest update yet, but I don't think a +1 difference would break anything personally.
Aye, the class does look busy, doesn't it? Despite this, there are strong parallels with the herbalist - the same chassis to avoid being screwed by randomness. Since that class went over well both with the reviewers and the purchasing public, I think this class will also do well. As with the herbalist, the hurdle is wrapping your brain around the central chaos mechanic.
Releasing tomorrow! Stay tuned!
Huzzah!
Really pleased with how this turned out! Thanks very much for taking a simple idea and fleshing it out into a very cool and fun to play class!
No shout outs in the product at all, which I think is fine. Preston I remember got one since he bartered (plus it was the first time for a product being born that way for Interjection Games I believe and therefore notable in itself) for it if I remember right haha. Personally, I'm just happy that there is a cool class that lots of people are likely going to enjoy.
On that note, congrats on #2 download on RPGnow!
Oh, geez. The shoutouts. Forgot them.
Yep, we need to do this properly. Changing man, send me thy name. Aleron, just confirming you're Alex :P
You got it.