I love the theming and concept for this class, and it carries the whole product. It has an interesting design where you can customize your own affliction. The three subclasses also feel distinct. The class itself is very distinct compared to the rest of the core classes, as it relies on afflictions and persistent damage to deal damage.
I find the power level of the class and specifically the class feats to be incredibly weak. There are many options that feel like they were added to fulfill a number quote and there are no exciting options save from the lv 20 feats. Despite three subclasses, there are only 2 feasts that are exclusive to one of the subclasses and both are for the divine subclass. The two other subclasses have nothing exclusive to themselves.
A good thing is that nearly all of the feasts are original and maybe only three are copies of core feats, two of them being the focus regaining feats.
Since this class has a key ability score of Constitution, you'd always be -1 compared to all other martial classes in ranged and melee combat. Having a key ability score of constitution is a cool design decision, but doesn't help the overall power level of the class.
I found it weird that the class progression is very bog standard martial progression, and compared to the core classes, the Symbiote class doesn’t get any additional bonuses from class progression other than more options on the affliction table.
The layout of the book is good and not confusing to read.
I'd only recommend buying this if the theme captures you wholly and you don't mind playing on a weaker power level. Alternatively this product can serve as a base for you to design a on top of (which I intend to do)
PS: don’t buy the foundry module as it has not been updated for a year (the last time it was last updated 2022-05-23)
Rating: [3 of 5 Stars!] |