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  1. Now, I'm voting no on succubus. Not because I think its particularly overpowered. Far from it. I'll give a full breakdown, of course, but to boil it down:
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  3. The succubus is far too personally defensive to be a meaningful front-line combatant. It has lots of abilities that are used outside of combat, yes, but to make the most out of those abilities, you need to be in front-line melee.
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  5. And now the more detailed breakdown.
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  7. Before I get into it, I'd like to say I have no issues with the Temptation Pool ability itself. One of the best designed abilities of the class.
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  9. One of my biggest issues with Succubus is that it's primary reason to be in combat is to use its defensive abilities to acquire the temptation points to use its more powerful defensive abilities or to use its out of combat abilities. Lingering Glance is an *ok* ability, since the big dumb fighter types will have a significantly lower will save then their Attack Roll. The issue is, it doesn't actually help the succubus *win*. This is a problem a lot of the succubus' combat options have. Looking at just the Profane Gifts:
  10. Touch of the Abyss: Daze is fantastic. Daze is one of the strongest status effects possible. But Daze on its own doesn't win you the fight. At worst it'll *probably* give you a round of breathing room against the big dumb fighter. Maybe you'll lock down the mage for a couple of turns. It's a great defensive ability, but you're still not making progress in the fight. You're buying your allies a turn or two, sure, but a Sleep spell would be just as, if not more effective.
  11. Infernal Reactions: Again, a fantastic ability. +4 Dodge is an extremely nice bonus, since all it takes is your immediate action. But again, all you're doing is *not dying*. You're not winning, you're just not losing.
  12. Infernal Immunities: Probably the weakest of the Profane Gifts, if I'm honest. Being immune to the Sleep status is neat, but situational.
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  14. A lot of the profane powers are in the same boat. Alluring Words, Beguiling Feint, Insinuate, Lethargic Feint, Profane Kiss, Scapegoat even They Belong To Me, to a somewhat lesser extent. All of these are *great* abilities individually, but they just don't *do* anything to progress combat. They help you avoid losing, but advance or bypass combat.
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  16. So let's talk about the abilities that *do*:
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  18. Innuendo: Charm is a decent status effect... except Charm loses its luster pretty quick. This will forever be a 1st level spell with a piss-poor save DC and to top it off, trying to use this in combat is a losing game since the target will likely have a +5 bonus to the save.
  19. Jilted Lover: This is *superb*, negative levels are a nasty, nasty thing... except this requires the subject be Charmed, an unlikely event at higher levels. Unfortunately, this could reasonably be considered a "threatening action" and break the charm on its own.
  20. Hellscape: Hellscape is basically just a poison effect. And not even a particularly good one. Black Mages get Bio at 5th level and will likely be out-damaging Hellscape and doesn't have the chance to be thrown off each round.
  21. Infernal Manipulator: Hoo boy. A pseudo charm monster effect, for an hour per level? Now *this* is the good shit. Infernal Manipulator can severely turn a battle around by nabbing the Big Dumb Fighter and turning him to your side. Infernal Manipulator is perhaps *the* single best ability Succubus has... If only the tweleve previous levels were just as goo
  22. Copycat: I take it back. *This* is the best ability Succubus has. Because it allows you to do something other than play Succubus. I know that comes across as extremely harsh, and I apologise, but as I've explained, Succubus doesn't really *do* anything actively. At best it's going to be a sub-par melee fighter swinging a spiked chain. Copycat lets it do something else that's actually relevant.
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  24. Add on to that the miscellaneous out-of-combat abilities and succubus just comes off as extremely underwhelming. Back when it was an Illusionist archetype, Succubus got away with it's archetype abilities being rather underwhelming because it still had the Illusionist's toolbox to work with. It could still *do* things beyond just surviving.
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  26. Of course, this assumes a Main Job succubus. As a Subjob, the Succubus's problems are lessened with Devil Patron probably being the standout "generic" good pick. WoL, though, is where Succubus *shines*. As a secondary class, Succubus is *fantastic*, especially when paired up with an already combat-capable chassis. This lets you use the defensive and social abilities of succubus when you need them without the troublesome "lack of anything else to do" that base succubus is plagued with.
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  28. In conclusion, I expect that once the novelty of succubus has worn off, people will come to the conclusion that they're just not as effective as they'd like to be, with a lot of players just retiring their Succubus characters, since they can't retrain out of it without taking a massive constitution and charisma drain.
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