First, design the effect that you want rhythm to have. Then build the powers around it.
My understanding of what you say you want is a number of powerful abilities, and some difficult choices between them - not just which abilities to run with, but how many. The way that you do this is you have the sustains be awesome, though strongly rhythm-dependent, and you have essentially nothing else touch rhythm at all. It puts the player in the position of saying "how much of which kinds of awesome should I invest in?
An alternate way to do it is to ensure that essentially all of their active powers are rhythm-based, and then give them rhythm-based sustains that are too useful/vital to ignore.
What I'm seeing here is an almost binary choice of sustains or powers. Either you crank up on the rhythm-based sustains, dragging your rhythm down to near-zero and take non-rhythm-based powers, or you take lots of rhythm -based powers, and only invest in those sustains (like timeless rest) that you wouldn't want while you were attacking anyway. That's a lot less interesting.
Bardic Class: The Chanter
Moderator: Moderator
Re: Bardic Class: The Chanter
Note the non-Rhythm categories for damage. Blight is support oriented damage over time, Speed Control is damage over time and support effects. Age Manipulation has one direct damage skill, and a lot of support effects. Vim I am uncertain on leaving on solely because it *does* add a second simple bolt of offense.
In this case, all of the non-class-oriented skills here are supporting moves that are not sustains(only one Sustain in the bunch, though it's a pretty good one, and Energy as a locked category for some support defense.). Attempting to simply ignore Rhythm-based damage skills will rob you of impact in various areas at the bonus of...what? Some extra secondary impact on your sustains? You ignore sustains entirely...for what? So that you don't get better saves and more damage? You're better off playing a Corruptor or a Paradox Mage for the schools they don't get, if you don't want to play the Rhythm game.
As you said, design the skills around the concept-all of the skills you intend, not just the ones you're making. In this case, if you try to totally opt out of one end or the other of Rhythm, you end up pretty much straight up worse. It's about striking a balance. Some attacking of the values may be required-this isn't going to be easy to balance perfectly, perhaps some more of the Passives should become Sustains, say, perhaps more need to be added, etc.-but I'm pretty sure that what you have described makes for a poorer build for this class, not a better one.
Also, the nail in the coffin for this is that-purposefully-every single Rescorer Sustain listed has a secondary impact based on your remaining Rhythm. They actively get worse if you just try to drop Rhythm to nothing. If those effects aren't powerful enough, then that's just a tweaking of values. I don't want to make it just "Buy up tons of one sustain and ignore the rest", either, though, by making them too reliant on Rhythm.
(The two core ones on Wandersong probably won't have huge Rhythm based effects, partially because they're meant to be a class-defining bonus. Juggling them should be simpler, so you have something less chaotic to base a character on. Making every single bit of a class gimmicky is also bad.)
In this case, all of the non-class-oriented skills here are supporting moves that are not sustains(only one Sustain in the bunch, though it's a pretty good one, and Energy as a locked category for some support defense.). Attempting to simply ignore Rhythm-based damage skills will rob you of impact in various areas at the bonus of...what? Some extra secondary impact on your sustains? You ignore sustains entirely...for what? So that you don't get better saves and more damage? You're better off playing a Corruptor or a Paradox Mage for the schools they don't get, if you don't want to play the Rhythm game.
As you said, design the skills around the concept-all of the skills you intend, not just the ones you're making. In this case, if you try to totally opt out of one end or the other of Rhythm, you end up pretty much straight up worse. It's about striking a balance. Some attacking of the values may be required-this isn't going to be easy to balance perfectly, perhaps some more of the Passives should become Sustains, say, perhaps more need to be added, etc.-but I'm pretty sure that what you have described makes for a poorer build for this class, not a better one.
Also, the nail in the coffin for this is that-purposefully-every single Rescorer Sustain listed has a secondary impact based on your remaining Rhythm. They actively get worse if you just try to drop Rhythm to nothing. If those effects aren't powerful enough, then that's just a tweaking of values. I don't want to make it just "Buy up tons of one sustain and ignore the rest", either, though, by making them too reliant on Rhythm.
(The two core ones on Wandersong probably won't have huge Rhythm based effects, partially because they're meant to be a class-defining bonus. Juggling them should be simpler, so you have something less chaotic to base a character on. Making every single bit of a class gimmicky is also bad.)