User talk:Luigifan18/Mindbreaker (3.5e Class)

Ratings

Ganteka Future opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

"Always evil and rotten to the core." Don't tell me how my character acts. That's my job, not the class's job. This text is of course just an example of this sort of thing. The class is littered with little bits like that. Incorrect assumptions about D&D worlds and forceful flavor are rife here, often in places where they're unneeded and provide article-lengthening clutter. This one just stood out as particularly jarring. Dealing [Vile] damage at 2nd level (maybe? since getting a torment engine isn't free so your class is gimped until you get the money and down time for it, making the class even less player friendly). If used against PCs, it's going to cripple them, but this is of course just the tip of the iceberg of horribly crippling and bogging down an adventure to the point of retreat or failure in a notably not fun way for the players. Getting hit by an ability with no level-appropriate counter is malarky. Also, holy crap that's a big list of things to have to have on hand for playing a character in this class. Normally that's not a problem. Spellcasters manage fine, but this is a new list on top of also having manifesting powers to track with another point system. Regaining power points on the fly, a previously daily-limited resource. Sorry wizards, you can just sit this next one out, I'll handle it with my powers that I get early and cost less than other classes for what they do. Ugh this class is a mess and I'm not even past the first level yet. You should really read Leziad's comment below since, well, infinite power points is a problem. This class really needs to be sandboxed and re-evaluated. 1000 gp ransom to use your class features, which is money you do not get at 1st level. Probably midway through 2nd level if you skip on having any other weapons and armor or other fun item things you'll probably need at that point. Wait, can they just have a bunch of these things sitting around? Can you dual-wield these things? Also, "vile-looking gauntlet". I don't like putting in all caps or bolding things for needless emphasis, reading should be enough to get the point across, but in this case STOP TELLING US WHAT IT HAS TO BE! IF I WANT MY GAUNTLET TO LOOK UNASSUMING WHEN I CRAFT IT MYSELF, I'M GOING TO DO THAT. THIS TEXT STYLE HAS NO PLACE IN A CLASS. STOP IT. Raise dead before a cleric. I stopped reading. This class is junk. Trim this thing down. Oppose.

	Eiji-kun opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.
	Sorry, I just remembered I kept meaning to rate this. Unfortunately everything Leziad says sums it up pretty well. The only thing I have to add is there is something amiss; I think it's a combination of its formatting and its length/number of features but it's actually kind of difficult to read through to the end.

Leziad opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

It has been long enough and none of the issues I pointed out has been fixed. It started as a psionic variant of one of my class, the class in question suffered a mild bloat in class features. A psionic version is fair, however the constant addition of new class features with very little removal of other class features made this class pretty bloated. The further addition of madness and mindbreak on top of it just broke it utterly and totally. Beside infinite dark insight loop, insane amounts of madness, fear cone that fuck you over sideways. This class is so bloated it a chore to read. It goes further that the author edited many power not his to add pain point mechanics, which I will need to clean up. I know the author meant well, but adding extra stuff on top of the Tormentor and then adding madness was a really bad idea. And it shows.

Undead_Knave opposes this article and rated it 0 of 4.

There are a lot of problems here, and I could just say "Look at what other people said." because it'll be quicker and realistically it'll probably have the same effect, but whatever. 1000 gp is a lot of money at level 1, so don't expect to get your torment engine until at least level 3, although you aren't supposed to have any items worth more than half your WBL at any one point, so it'll probably be closer to level 4. That's fine; you're a full manifester, and that alone would be enough to make this VH. Somehow you've got one early because you're schtuping the DM or whatever (the only reason they let you play this class in the first place), and so you've got max pain points, and max power points outside of combat. Food is never a problem. "You're being ridiculous UK!" you exclaim. No, I'm not. You get Mental Assault at level 1, and it's at will with a cooldown. You can do Intelligence damage with it. One shot a bear (not a thing known for its Will saves), eat for ages. On the topic of non-sequiturs, it has a lot of powers available to it. A lot of them seem unrelated to the theme. Several of them are available at lower levels than dedicated classes. This is a problem. Tangentially, it has a lot of other abilities, too. It's a full manifester, so that would normally be strange to begin with, but several of these are strong enough that it could basically be a class without any manifesting (and it would still be broken powerful, but less necessarily so). Some of the abilities are also arguably better when people succeed on their saves which is weird. Speaking of power points, they aren't kept in separate pools. You have one pool of power points no matter how many sources of power points you have (classes, feats, etc.). The economies are equally borked regardless, but I thought it was worth mentioning. There's other stuff, but I'm blanking right now, and this is more than enough to justify the oppose. ADDENDUM: Madness is for things that are harmful to conceive as a concept. Gaslighting is a shitty thing to do. We are literally discussing it right now with no negative side effects. That doesn't cause madness.

Which abilities are better when people succeed on their saves? As for powers being unrelated to the theme, I think I put most of those at the lower levels — they're weak utility powers, and the idea is that the mindbreaker might use them for gaslighting or other such things. And getting the powers earlier — the mindbreaker is a dedicated class. A very dedicated class. Pretty much everything it does revolves around mental torture. Because it's so specialized, it makes sense that it acquires its powers a bit early, because it doesn't get many to choose from compared to more generalist classes. --Luigifan18 (talk) 07:44, 4 December 2017 (MST)
As for Ganteka, well, in this case, it is the class's job to tell you how your character is, because it takes a certain sort of character to become a mindbreaker. A very, very evil character, as actively degrading other people's mental health is the exact opposite of a nice thing to do. --Luigifan18 (talk) 07:48, 4 December 2017 (MST)

Comments

Alright so you asked for a review, for one this looks pretty promising. There are a few issues though, let's start with the following in spending your pain points:

• No such thing as a vile bonus, might be a mistake I made in my own class though. The word is profane. It's a very minor issue.
• Recovering Power Points is a bad idea, being a daily mechanic. Maybe cap the maximum amount of pp you can regain per day? (I appear to have done so in my own tormentor, I should also put a limit on that.)
• Increasing your manifester level should be limited as well, right now it makes the wilder green with jealousy.

More later but right now I need to get dinner. --Leziad (talk) 22:55, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Alright, the only issues I can see are the two powers I outlined above. Since it's impossible to limit power points in the same way I did with spell slots, there is a lesser-known rule that could be useful for you: Temporary Power Points. TPP don't stack together, they overlap. I do not remember where they are from, however. --Leziad (talk) 23:13, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Using pain points to recharge power points is a core feature of the class; the tradeoff is that the mindbreaker's power point pool is much smaller than that of other full manifesting classes, like the psion and wilder. I reduced the size of the power point pool just in case that wasn't clear enough. I also reduced the duration of the manifester level boost. --Luigifan18 (talk) 14:20, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Duration is not the problem, wilder has it as the next power they manifest. With psionic you can augment powers way beyond their normal range, like turn dominate person into dominate monster. I'd recommend limiting the manifester level boost to up to 1/3rd of your class level. --Leziad (talk) 14:40, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

All right, I'll do that. --Luigifan18 (talk) 15:36, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Also, I intentionally made the power point recharge option a full-round action (the tormentor refreshes spell slots as a standard action) and made it render the mindbreaker flat-footed, provoke attacks of opportunity, and require Concentration checks if distracted in order to make it difficult to get away with in combat — especially if trying to recover a lot of power points. (The mindbreaker does get uncanny dodge, but not until level 7, and even then, he needs to be psionically focused to benefit from said uncanny dodge, making the option to expend psionic focus to get more power points a bit of a trap function.) --Luigifan18 (talk) 16:02, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

I am still a bit reserved about recovering power points but that is fair enough, im more worried about recovering it between combat. But it not a major concern right now. --Leziad (talk) 17:02, 12 October 2015 (UTC)

Economy.Exe has Stopped Working

Flavor problems aside with gaining dark insight and madness through torture (and there are plenty) the class kind of borked the whole dark insight/madness economy. Dark Insight isn't easy to get, it require time and adventuring and the expenditure of resources. Beside that madness and mindbreak are the downside of dark insight, they make having a high score a dangerous thing beside all it boons.

Now you gave an incredibly quick infinite dark insight engine with complete and utter immunity to mindbreak to the same class, borking the whole system. Even if he couln't inflict it on himself, he can literally create Dark Insight 1000+ minions who he doesn't care if they mindbreak.

Now immunity to mindbreak, I wrote a lot of material about the thing and don't think im being a purist about it, but the dark insight problem above shine on why I made no way of being inherently immune to mindbreak to PC. Flavorwise mindbreak is a pretty huge thing, it knowledge that is so eldritch and inhuman it is physically hurtful. It seeing an Eldritch God through a small portal, it peering into another plane through a portal, it having your vision reality shattered by 'fingers' of a abomination from elseworlds... and the mindbreaker is immune to it utterly and completely at level 3. --Leziad (talk) 20:56, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

I had a post here, but then I was ninja'd. May as well put the flavor thing here, it's weird. It's a torture class, right? Why can it give dark insight, an issue of knowledge, not pain?

"Oh no don't waterboard me, aghargahghahhghghh!!!"

"Now talk fool!"

"Never! Also why do I suddenly know the Seven Secrets of Yog Sothoth, Gate of the Infinite Worlds? Here, waterboard me again and maybe I can figure out this Cthulthu thing next. By the way, what the hell is a Cthulthu?"

So... yeah. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 21:06, 25 October 2015 (UTC)

The idea behind the mindbreaker's ability to grant dark insight is that an experienced mindbreaker becomes so damn skilled at breaking people's minds that he might as well be an eldritch being, even though he actually isn't. An experienced mindbreaker is just as dangerous to the sanity of those around him as freakin' Cthulhu himself. And waterboarding isn't a mindbreaker's style; he vastly prefers gaslighting and other forms of mental torture, the key word being mental. He considers physical torture to be beneath him, a waste of his talents and a degradation of his art. He breaks people's minds for fun; it's his idea of a good time.

The mindbreaker isn't so much immune to mindbreak as much as it is, well, a mindbroken mindbreaker is the exact same thing as a not mindbroken mindbreaker. Inflicting madness on him is a moot point; he revels in it. It pleases him. So, mechanically, he's immune to it. --Luigifan18 (talk) 02:31, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Oh, and one thing I forgot; Mental Assault is exactly what it sounds like. The mindbreaker uses his psychic power to directly attack the mind of his victim. --Luigifan18 (talk) 02:37, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I've been following this conversation for a little while now. I'm not entirely sure you understand the premise of Mindbreak. It is not merely madness. Gaslighting makes it so that people doubt what they see, so that they go insane or go mad. Mindbreak is not going mad. Madness cannot necessarily prevent mindbreaking, either. Mindbreaking is not the loss of understanding or sense, but learning things one cannot fathom. Something beyond what one's brain or maybe even very soul is incapable (regardless of power level) of comprehending without damage.

Beyond this, how can a meager strike instill complete understanding of what cannot be. Especially from a being incapable of fully comprehending it.

On an alternative note, your argument ignores the mechanical issues that were reflected. Mindbreak was created to function as a downside to Dark Insight, which, before Mindbreak, had none. This immunity causes the only downside to be negated and all benefits, balanced along with that downside to be thrown askew from its scale. How does your class retain the proper penalties for its benefits? --Novaform (talk) 03:07, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Flavor aside, level 3 is a little early to be immune to the Presence of the Old God, or getting an infinite dark insight loop. --Leziad (talk) 04:38, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

The mindbreaker can't grant dark insight until level 10... And his whole shtick is damaging the minds of others. --Luigifan18 (talk) 14:00, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I think the bigger part there was "immune to cthulthu, level 3". That said, I do agree it seems out of place. Dark insight isn't damaging your mind (that's madness and mindbreak), and the flavor seems ill fitting. On the matter of infinite dark insight, remember dark insight does carry some "benefits". Besides fail-less warped plane shifting, and its use in the new dark insight spells, you can suddenly identify even the most obscure eldritch being, and engage in battles of will against Yog Sothoth... and win. -- Eiji-kun (talk) 14:11, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I know that, I just couldn't think of anything else madness-related that could be the equivalent of changing ability damage to ability drain. I'll be happy to change it if I can come up with a good alternative... you have any ideas?

As for the immunity to mindbreak, I could change it to "you need X more madness before you mindbreak", X being equal to your class level. --Luigifan18 (talk) 15:59, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

I still see the infinite dark insight loop in mental ravage, and class level to madness is my typical go-to, although usually it from class with few level but that fine. On a very minor note in Student of the Old Gods, the being associated the most with mindbreak is the Old God, not the Old Gods. It a single being (probably) bot a whole pantheon of them (thankfully). --Leziad (talk) 20:01, 26 October 2015 (UTC)

Like I said earlier, if madness is treated like ability damage, then dark insight is the closest equivalent to ability drain that I could think of, seeing as it increases vulnerability to mindbreak. I'll be happy to change it if someone can think of a better alternative. --Luigifan18 (talk) 14:27, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

There is absolutely no parallel between ability damage and ability drain with madness and dark insight. Dark Insight is literally knowledge of the forbidden lore and things that should not be. Mindbreak is the hostile knowledge, you are more vulnerable to it the more dark insight you have because you are able to understand it faster and better. The better parallel is that madness is ability damage and dark insight is having an ability score. Mental ravage literally break the dark insight/madness system in place, it ceases working as intended as soon as the mindbreaker come into play. --Leziad (talk) 19:01, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

(RESET INDENT) Right, I was aware that I'd risk that, but I seriously don't have any better ideas. Do you have any? --Luigifan18 (talk) 22:16, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Honestly I'd always choose ability damage/drain over inflicting madness. Not only wisdom drain can kill someone, but it ALSO make someone more susceptible to madness. The only other alternative is madness that recover super slowly.--Leziad (talk) 23:02, 28 October 2015 (UTC)

Sure, let's go with madness that goes away slowly. And by "slowly", I mean "never". (Unless you use restoration.) --Luigifan18 (talk) 14:20, 29 October 2015 (UTC)

Giving super madness is probably not a good idea, giving as you wrote it it one shot absolutely everything not immune to it. So far, there only one creature immune to it. It CR 33. --Leziad (talk) 05:16, 30 October 2015 (UTC)

Bump. Moreover this class is too efficient with madness/mindbreak, especially when it not it main gimmick (that would be pain points and psionic powers). --Leziad (talk) 15:24, 3 November 2015 (UTC)

Problems

You realize that with the one-shot absolutely everything combo at 10th, it just a matter of time before it become comm opposed. That mean that all the power, which you add to it power list (and modify the text, which is bothersome by itself) will need to be cleaned up right? To reiterate, the combo is based on the fact that it 'madness drain' trigger over and over again, dealing 20%+ of your health every time. This is a death sentence and should be not be part of the game. I did not design madness and mindbreak to be the sole domain of a class already brimming with gimmicks. Relentless Mindbreak add even more to this problem, by changing how it very mechanic works. --Leziad (talk) 19:33, 19 November 2017 (MST)

It does not one-shot anything without stupidly high dark insight and/or stupidly low Wisdom. Only 1d4 permanent madness can be inflicted with a single mental ravage, which can only be used once every 1d4 rounds. --Luigifan18 (talk) 20:31, 19 November 2017 (MST)

If it does reach the threshold, it is indeed a one-shot. Is it difficult to do? Kinda. But it is a massive daze-death spiral that will take out whatever has the bad luck of being on the wrong side of it. The dice does increase with time but that is of little relevance. Very very few things are immune to Madness, many things are immune to ability damage/drain. This make any long engagement with a 10th level mindbreak a death sentence unless you are one those very rare creature who is immune or have access to somewhat powerful spells. --Leziad (talk) 20:38, 19 November 2017 (MST)

...I don't see a problem with that. This is a game that's chock-full of one-shot kills. Just make sure your Will saves are up to snuff and take the mindbreaker down ASAP. And for the love of God, don't challenge him alone. Which are all good things to be doing anyway. --Luigifan18 (talk) 20:47, 19 November 2017 (MST)

It a PC class, it not a monster. I mean forgetting this a at-will ability damage ability (albeit on a medium cooldown) in the first place. This can be easily exploited and is not good for the game. A 10th level Mindbreaker is better at inflicting madness than actual Eldritch Abominations. --Leziad (talk) 20:51, 19 November 2017 (MST)

Is it really? I could maybe extend the cooldown if it bothers you that much... --Luigifan18 (talk) 20:55, 19 November 2017 (MST)

The problem is that it pretty inconsistent with the mechanics in places. Ideally Gibbering Madnesss should reset upon Mindbreak. I am cool if it does not recover in other way, but it vanishing upon mindbreak is a fundamental stone of the mechanic. --Leziad (talk) 21:00, 19 November 2017 (MST)

I do kinda like the idea of the mindbreaker being able to drive a creature ultra-mad, so I don't think gibbering madness should reset completely. If I'm going to tone it down, I think either a part of it should still remain (and maybe convert into “regular” madness) or the victim should effectively mindbreak twice. --Luigifan18 (talk) 09:23, 20 November 2017 (MST)

Remember, there is very little defense against madness. This class inflicts the most madness of all the PC options I made available, with an at-will ability. The regular mental assault is way too strong. Remember, when you mindbreak, not only do you take damage, but you are also dazed. This makes any fight that drags on against a mindbreaker a deathwish, even for a substantially stronger creature. In addition, it can use its Daily Ability to inflict even more madness. Keep in mind, I was very careful in implementing a dangerous ability and PCs had to use dangerous and difficult means to inflict it upon others.

The mindbreaker, who takes no risks, uses no resources, is much better at the whole madness thing than a frigging Witness of the Cosmos. At level 10. --Leziad (talk) 09:36, 20 November 2017 (MST)

Well, that only makes sense, considering how specialized the mindbreaker is. Damaging people's minds is his entire shtick. He does nothing else. --Luigifan18 (talk) 11:55, 20 November 2017 (MST)

The class possess 9th level psionic power prog, at-will ability damage, ability bypass immunities to it main gimmick, all of the tormentors class features with easier access to pain points. The class was complete before you added Madness in. This is a powerful ability that can destroy monsters very easily and the mindbreaker not only take no risk, no madness to itself, no dark insight cost... but gain pain point when it inflict it on others. It a telepath that took levels in Tormentor and gets even more out of the package. The class is in dire need to a clean up, it has too many class features and is a huge chore to read. I want to like, there a good concept here, but you need to pick a mechanic and run with it. You cannot have a class with 9th level power progression and at-wills that strong.--Leziad (talk) 14:15, 20 November 2017 (MST)

Not all of the tormentor class features, I deliberately left a few out. And I'm still kicking around ideas for toning it down (longer cooldown? Smaller damage die?) --Luigifan18 (talk) 14:27, 20 November 2017 (MST)

The class is overtuned. It has Pain Points, power Point and Madness. Even ignoring Madness flat out, at-will ability damage at range with a save for half is a big no-no. This class gain this very powerful ability at 1st level and it just get crazier from there. It can do everything a Tormentor can but better, has access to a manifesting list that make the telepath cry (with fewer power points being the only drawback) and has access to a crazy amount of class features. Take a gimmick a psionic tormentor, be a madness inducing slender man but not both.

You will have to rewrite Mental Assault and Terrible Revelation either way, both are too good. As for dealing with inflicting madness, I wrote a whole class Here for doing so. --Leziad (talk) 15:58, 21 November 2017 (MST)

Okay, I've toned down both of the abilities you mentioned. For Mental Assault, I doubled the cooldown time (from 1d4 rounds to 2d4 rounds), made it so that a successful Will save outright negates it, made it so that madness's damage die is 2 steps lower than ability damage, and changed the gibbering madness so that if a creature ends up with enough gibbering madness to mindbreak it (which will be hard with the longer cooldown time and total 4-step damage die reduction), instead of dropping to 0 hit points and immediately going insane, it instead mindbreaks normally, with half the gibbering madness going away outright and the other half becoming normal madness. I also halved the stun time.

For Terrible Revelation, I cut the range by roughly 40%. So it's now a 60-foot cone instead of a 100-foot cone.

Hopefully this makes the class less OP. --Luigifan18 (talk) 18:23, 21 November 2017 (MST)

Mental Assault still deal ability damage at 1st level, at-will even if it on a cooldown. Nobody can really cure ability damage at 1st level. It also scale really really well. To top it off it is a full manifester with a very good power list, it only drawback is it lower power point pool. Which doesn't matter cause it can regain it power points an at absurdly efficient rate. It pain ability is vastly superior to the tormentor, with more than twice as many option and some option being made superior.

To put things in perspective, at level 17th (20th) Tormentor must spend 35 pain points to recover a 7th level spell slot. Their entire daily limit. A mindbreaker must spend 7 to regain 14 power points (enough for a 7th level slot with 1 power point left over), sure he is vulnerable while doing so... but why would you ever do this in combat anyway? This power point recovery mechanic alone, much more versatile than recovering an expended spell slot, put the mindbreaker into absurdly broken territory. But there more, it can gain pain points by using powers on enemy or with an at-will close range ability.

It is difficult to dig through the whole class, it is very verbose and has tons of abilities it does not need. It was already borked way before you added Madness and Gibbering Madness. It already had too much and needed to be cut down significantly. Now why does it need to be the best at a mechanic it wasn't even built to use? Between Impart Horrific Image and Mental Assault, it can drive everyone mad with no cost (cause it can just recover all power points used). The madness is actually weaker than ability damage and drain, especially bypassing immunities with an absurd damage dice at no risk or cost whatsoever.

You need to decide what you build around, do you want to build around a Pain Points? Mental assault? Madness? Powers? Because right now the class has a better pain mechanic than the Tormentor. A super powerful at-will ability damage eldritch blast. The best at inflicting madness to the point it get a new source of madness stronger than the one inflicted by actual eldritch abomination. A very well stocked power list and good amount of power known as a full manifester with the ability to regain power points at will. The mindbreaker's kit is seriously overtuned in many way and need serious cut down. --Leziad (talk) 10:05, 22 November 2017 (MST)

Infinite Freaking Power Points

That is the biggest and most major problem of all of them and it was never addressed by you. This is an absolute deal-breaker and must be solved otherwise the class will only be opposed.

The Tormentor can regain spell slots, and is WAY more restricted at that too. It can only recover spell slots of at least two level lower than it highest spell slot and the recovery is very expensive in pain points. The Mindbreaker's recovery is much much more effective and is not capped by level at all. You can just keep recovering power points until you get right back to max. You can totally use those recovered power points to manifest your strongest powers as well.

A Tormentor must pay 5 points to recover a 1st level spell, 10 for two and 15 for third. A Mindbreaker recover 10 for 5 (enough for a 5th level power and a st level power), 20 for 10 (enough for a 9th level power and a 2nd level power) and 30 for 15 (enough for one 9th and one 7th). It can also extend it psionic focus to recover even more.

Even if a power is beyond it reach in maximum pain point, it can keep recovering lower amount cause there no fall off. It just cost more actions.

As someone who love psionic I am wondering if you actually know how power point economy work. This is not good and is extremely broken. I mean dealing freaking ability damage at-will at 1st level is bad, but this is just ridiculous. --Leziad (talk) 16:31, 28 November 2017 (MST)