Talk:Pirate, Alternative (3.5e Class)

Ratings

	Tarkisflux is neutral on this article and rated it 2 of 4.
	This is a perfectly serviceable Moderate balance class, but it's not one that I'm be excited by. The abilities mostly fit but don't grab my attention, the high end of the class looks a lot like the low end, and the fluff isn't particularly inspiring. But if I were going to run a Moderate balance game, I'd let people play this pirate alongside a fighter or barbarian.

Careful with those titles

Writing it as Pirate (alternative) (3.5e Class) is gonna make the wiki think that the name of this class is Pirate and it belongs in the non-existent (alternative) section. We should change that. I'll do it for you but.... oh god, what... what happened to the formatting on the class? Where's the table? -- Eiji-kun (talk) 07:10, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

(EDIT: Found your formatting problem. Now just waiting a moment so you realize I'm gonna move this with a proper title. Hope I don't disrupt your work.) -- Eiji-kun (talk) 07:16, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

(EDIT: And the move is done.) -- Eiji-kun (talk) 07:29, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Oh. Thanks. Um... I've been drinking coffee all day and I feel a little zonked out right now. Thanks for the help though. --Nolanf (talk) 08:07, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

No offense intended to Spazalicious Chaos

Hi, everyone. I was thinking that I wanted to include a proper pirate in a game I'll be starting soon. There was nothing in the PHB about one (unless you just wanted to put a rogue or a swashbuckler on a ship), so I went to the wikis.
Well, what do you know, but there was a Pirate homebrew sitting right here. I read it and I liked... parts of it. I don't want to come off as harsh, but the Pirates of the Caribbean thing that was obviously going on there just didn't fit any concept that I wanted to use.
If you're reading this, Spazalicious Chaos, please believe me that I didn't want to step on your toes or insult you in any way by making up my own pirate. I even hope you take it as a compliment that I stole some of your concepts (with some minor tweaks).
So, credit where credit is due: Some of the core "piratey" features (i.e. Pirate Specialty, Snatch Attack or "Snatch Steal", and Pirate Specialty Perfection) were written by Spazalicious Chaos first. Most of the other concepts came from the original Swashbuckler from the Complete Warrior (3.5), and Sneak Attack came from the rogue class.
The only crap that I came up with myself was Pirate Bluff, Drink Like a Pirate, and the upgrade to Lucky. Oh yeah, and I also downgraded Sneak Attack a little bit for this class (and I might get some hate messages for that).
Thank you. Good night. --Nolanf (talk) 08:25, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Balance

Between the sneak attack and all the feats that you get automatically (many of which you definitely want as a sneak attacker), I'd say this sits quite comfortably at High balance. --Ghostwheel (talk) 08:45, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for the tip. This class is now totally high. --Nolanf (talk) 18:20, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Begging for Feedback

Now that i have tagged this class "Complete," I'd like some constructive feedback from the community. My first question is this: What is the minimum you would eliminate from this class to change it from high balance to moderate? Second, is this class versatile enough, and conceptually open enough, that you would want/allow one of these characters in your game? Thanks for your thoughts. --Nolanf (talk) 20:04, 28 August 2013 (UTC)

Is this moderate?

I'd like this class to be in the Moderate range, but keep the dumbed-down sneak attack and some of the other cool piratey stuff.
Here's what I'm thinking: I'm getting rid of Insightful Strike, Acrobatic Skill Mastery, Weakening Critical, and Wounding Critical.
I don't know if anyone's actually reading this, but if someone is, please let me know if you think this is enough to take it down to Moderate.
Thank you --Nolanf (talk) 22:57, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Unless you cut the Sneak Attack further, and got rid of some of the more feats (especially the ones that are actually useful all the time, forcing the character to use their actual feats on them), I still think it's in High level range. This is especially true with full BAB. --Ghostwheel (talk) 15:09, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Losing those things probably puts it right on the line between High and Moderate according to the current wiki guidelines. I'd peg it as moderate already, but it's a fuzzy line and we've been known to disagree about it before. Full BAB + 2/3 sneak attack is roughly equal to 3/4 BAB + full sneak attack, or about equal to the Rogue's progression... but the rogue has UMD to boost him a lot and this doesn't. Still, if you wanted to be more Moderate you could also afford to lose Weapon Finesse and the Dodge bonus. Especially the dodge bonus, since this is a class that is focused on Dex that already gets to use light armor and isn't going to have AC problems. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 20:40, 1 September 2013 (UTC)

Hmmm. Yeah, players probably won't be using their Bluff all that often (Should I add Diplomacy and/or Intimidate to the mix?), and the Con modifier only really comes into play once in a while... Still, I thought it would be fun to have, and this whole pirate thing is all about having fun, right?

I was thinking about using the 3/4 BAB since the beginning, but I just didn't have the courage to do it until now. Dodge Bonus is now gone. I agree that if this character is set up right, his Dex bonus ought to be high enough that a little Dodge wouldn't matter much.

Sooooooooo, moderate now? --Nolanf (talk) 08:34, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I actually meant that either (full bab and 2/3 progression sneak attack) or (3/4 bab and full progression sneak attack) were a good baseline for moderate. You've gone with (3/4 bab and 2/3 progression sneak attack), and that's a bit low. I'm not sure it's actually down in Low balance land, but I'm concerned about it.

And sure, add in intimidate and/or diplomacy. Random boosts to social skills on a per day basis are not a very big deal. Diplomacy can get weird, but your numbers are small enough that it should be ok. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 16:14, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

So it would seem the two of you (Tarkisflux and Ghostwheel) disagree on what makes a moderate balance. Personally, I just like the full BAB, so I'll go with that.

And I think that's it. I know neither of you are in the habit of throwing around a lot of high ratings, but I would feel good if you gave a rating to this class. Thanks. --Nolanf (talk) 17:36, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

I think you'll start falling behind published monsters around level 8 with this class, which is pretty standard for Moderate balance. Ghost is of the opinion that sufficiently large quantities of damage will push you up into High (or at least the sorts of games that he enjoys anyway), and I don't think that's enough on its own. But he'd probably agree with me that the remaining class features are pretty much Moderate balance, and that even if the damage pushed it into High (which it doesn't) it's on the bottom end of the balance range.

As for rating it, sure, why not. - Tarkisflux ^Talk 17:53, 2 September 2013 (UTC)

Look at what makes for moderate balance. I don't see a fighter ever making the same kind of damage as this class, and UMD isn't hard to pump for most classes to the point needed to make effective use of tricks. Heck, even going with something like that Halfling Hurler build, this would steal deal way more damage than a fighter could ever hope to put out use moderate-level feats. --Ghostwheel (talk) 19:54, 2 September 2013 (UTC)