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Poll

Occultist: Small Update & Poll for next Subclass

  • Witch Doctor 20
  • Cultist/Ritualist 36
  • Hedge Mage 41
  • Necromancer 30
  • Possessed 28
  • Collector/Antiquarian 30
  • 2022-01-23
  • —2022-01-30
  • 185 votes
{'title': 'Occultist: Small Update & Poll for next Subclass', 'choices': [{'text': 'Witch Doctor', 'votes': 20}, {'text': 'Cultist/Ritualist', 'votes': 36}, {'text': 'Hedge Mage', 'votes': 41}, {'text': 'Necromancer', 'votes': 30}, {'text': 'Possessed', 'votes': 28}, {'text': 'Collector/Antiquarian', 'votes': 30}], 'closes_at': datetime.datetime(2022, 1, 30, 10, 22, 18, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc), 'created_at': datetime.datetime(2022, 1, 23, 10, 55, 17, tzinfo=datetime.timezone.utc), 'description': None, 'allow_multiple': False, 'total_votes': 185}

Content

Hey Folks-

Here's a small update for Occultist, v1.1.2. This is mostly a maintenance patch bringing all the new spells over the last year as well as grammar and spelling fixes, but with some small content updates. This is the ground work for the upcoming larger update, v1.2.

Occultist v1.1.2

GMBinder Version 

PDF Version

The v1.2 update will bring more rites, a bit more refinement to melee Oracles, and a new subclass. The new subclass is the subject today's poll - you folks will get to vote on the next subclass. Here is a brief summary of some of options:

Witch Doctor uses totems to empower their magic. Their dark rites focus on ways to whittle down their enemies with subtle effects that carve away the effectiveness of their enemies and empower their allies.

Cultist/Ritualist is an option that is about sacrificing to gain new powers. They can sacrifice their own hit points, spell slots, or other abilities/ability scores to gain powerful all day buffs allowing them to customize their load out for the day to come. Will come with some expansions to blood magic, and specialize to some extent in it.

Hedge Mage is a self taught magic user that stitches magical traditions together to form crude by effective pathways to magic. The specialize in twisting magic to suit new purposes, and being scrappy and resourceful.

Necromancer these specialize binding undead to your service; more specialized than a School of Necromancy wizard to empowering minions, with specializations for corporal or incorporeal undead.

Possessed rather binding spirits to their service, the possessed allow themselves to be possessed by different spirits that give them new abilities and skills. Specializations based on the type of souls they have in their library of souls (more martial souls, more magical souls, more knowledgeable souls, etc).

Collector/Antiquarian is someone that delves the old magic through items, charms, tokens, and other things they collect, enchant, and use. This would be far less martial than the Cursesmith or Infusionsmith from Inventor.

Please note that names are probably not final. They are just the tags I thought up. It is also possible that I will fail to come up with finalized subclass for the vote winner; I will use the poll as a guide of which subclass to try to make first, but if I cannot find a way to make it work, I will move on for 1.2 and circle back to that idea in the future.

Don't see the subclass you want the most? I asked on Discord for suggestions, but it's not too late submit ideas for 1.3 and beyond - feel free to leave those in a commend

The change log for v1.1.2 is as follows:

Changelog

General

Updated the spell list to match the Casting Compendium, and added new spells from there (10+ spells).

Occultists now get light armor proficiency.

Numerous spell and grammar fixes.

Added new Rite, Sympathetic Bond.

Added new Rite, Spirit Sense

Witch

Witch's Touch now removes the need for a material component casting a curse spell (this was commonly how most people played, since it is easy to get the material component when you can touch the target, but this clarifies that).

Shaman

Shaman's Touch now requires your bonus action, making it work like War Magic (with the added caveat the spell needs to be range touch).

Oracle

Truth of Death changed to prevent hit point regeneration rather than pierce necrotic resistance.

Revelation of Death added.

Truth of Fire changed.

Truth of Life is added.

Twin Revelation required level lowered.

Revelations clarify you cannot activate more than one without Twin Revelation.

General Updates & Status

In addition to the poll, here is a good chance to submit any feedback for Occultist v1.2 if you've been playing v1.1 over the last year.

I will have the next phase of Generic Subclasses project up soon (Bounty Hunter, Elemental Druid, and a bonus subclass not from the poll are in testing, two other options in progress), and have been working FoundryVTT modules for a handful of things (updates to the Spell Compendium, etc). Generic Elemental Spells 2.0 is in the works (bringing utility spells, mostly). KCCC 1.1 will probably be up early next month as well, though is a minor update (that's the version that is being printed, I'm just going through and rebuilding the links and things for the digital version).

I may regret saying this (as its not a promise) but I think we will see the first new class in awhile next month as well. Art is done mostly done (some spoilers have been posted over in the discord) and it's taking form in early testing. It'll probably get a 0.8 release first for wider testing and thoughts.

I will post an end of month summary post at, well, the end of the month (or maybe early next month) with links to the various things I'm working on and updating, but as always, the link hub can usually direct you to the latest version of the main things.

Hope you folks are all doing well out there, and as always, thank you - I love sharing stuff with you folks, and always welcome any questions or thoughts.

Comments

Codex

Strong vote for hedge mage. While I love the concept of the cultist and would love to see it done, I've yet to see a class or subclass concept that burns its own HP that isn't super fragile. If you've seen any of Critical Role Campaign 2, it has a rather infamous example of that mechanic backfiring. That said, if you could get it working properly, it would be an excellent blood mage option. If anyone could do it, it would probably be you

Gillian Robinson

Necromancer! The ability to summon ghosts of various kinds sounds amazing.

E Rhodes

The idea of expanding the hints of a blood magic system in occultist already sounds amazing. And a subclass that specializes in it seems like an interesting challenge. Looking forward to a couple of these, but Cultist is far and away the most interesting and exciting

Pizza Emperor

Antiquarian woop woop! Love the flavor of antiquarians so much.

KibblesTasty

While I'm not aware of that particularly example (I've only seen a little bit of Critical Role campaign 2), I'd guess it's a reference to a Blood Hunter, as I've had some experience with them, and have seen them have issues there. That said, I agree that hit point for damage is quite hard to balance. I noted on the Discord that Cultist/Ritualist is probably what I would vote for if I was voting just off concepts, but is also probably the most mechanically challenging to get right, so I'm not playing favorites with the options. I have some ideas, but as with everything it'd take some refinement and testing to see if how make them work out.

Glider Onair

Don't listen to those hedge mage people! They're the ones destroying wall street!

E Rhodes

Absolutely agree, this is why we need cultists, to sacrifice them!

Glider Onair

I see the light now! It is all becoming clear! I was originally partial to the Necromancer class, but from the looks of things, I'm pretty sure those necromancers are the source of too many of our DC politicians!

Eugene mitchell

With the witch doctor using totems, is it like totems in path of exile? Cause the thought of throwing down totems to do area buffs and debuffs sounds awesome. Too bad it seems to be the least popular so far :(

Matt Sutton

Would love a Necromancer added to the subclasses. Just started playing a campaign as a Shaman where everything is just flavoured as Necromancy. Curious to see where you would go with an actual subclass.