Basic Fantasy RPG Forums

I think removing the spells and having a few animal traits would be a more balanced and easier direction. Also maybe have the animal as an NPC character that you can pretty much control but the GM described action and how they are played out. They would make a very large effort to help their master in anyway but they wouldn't understand the tactical implications of their commands. Maybe a spirit bound character could have small chance (maybe 3% per level) of going into an animalistic rage where the GM can control them for a turn.

OK then got the version updated for saves.

Yeah thinking about it spells really need to be removed and maybe the animal abilities could be staggered through the levels. I do like the animalistic rage thing. Maybe for each animal instinct they have, it's a 5% chance every day or week to go into a Gm controlled rage. Maybe we could playtest it over roll 20 so that it wouldn't invade on our usual game? I think 3000 exp would probably still be in order, even with all these "nerfs".

No I think that would unbalance The class in the other direction. Unless you can make up some really cool animal traits. And I think having the animal controlled by the DM would make a miserable experience for the player as in, if one dies the other dies and having one half of you characters life not in the players control is a bad idea as it could create tension at the table. additionally if the player character is to die as is quite common with old school style games that shifts some of the blame for the death onto the DM instead of it being on the player allowing for improvement through retrospective.

And if The spells really are are to be removed that is quite a major nerf and it removes some of the explanation of the class origins credibility. As the class is created through the use of a combination of magic jar and animal companion spell. so if the spells are to be removed then the experience would for levelling up would definitely have to be decreased otherwise it is to weak against other classes.

Although I like the rage idea I think removing the spells would take the class down a path it shouldn't go. more towards a barbarian or fighter with animal companion rather than the coexisting druid and animal combination.

But the spells do need nerfing a bit. I'll get on it.

That explanation is a bit... weird/convoluted. I think maybe that it's sort of a luck/ connection to nature. If your thrown to the wolves as a baby under a certain star sign during the year of the wolf (or whatever else) then your soul could be bonded and intertwined to the point where it's impossible to separate them. The fact that it is bonded is magic in itself. Anything that isn't natural is magic if you think about. The explanation for the low hit dice is that due to the fact that animals have a lesser, smaller soul so the spirit bonder has to give up some of his soul energy to compensate, making them feeble. Just throwing ideas out there, literally got the idea while typing so yeah.

Hmm I'm thinking to go back to the description on the PDF It really is a very harrowing process that no one can escape from unscathed or even ever truly recover from. To deal with the actual process lets just say that no one who ever experiences it would speak of it willingly and no one who can do it would ever give up the secret.

And anything that isn't natural is human. Anything that is not human ore nature is magic only because we do not yet understand it.