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## 3e Unedited Junk

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Iaimeki
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  Posts: 159
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

### 3e Unedited Junk

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Post by Iaimeki » Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:06 pm

I've written some other material for 3e D&D. Unfortunately, I didn't finish before the time that 4e announcements started coming out or it was becoming clear I wasn't going to be in a D&D campaign any time in the near future. I never finished, and even though I started updating the section on NPC classes to be compatible with the Frank and K's preliminary version of the Book of Gears, I lost all my work on in it in a file-copying mistake and since then I've had no desire to continue. Truth to tell, D&D isn't a setting or a system that I like, and since then I've turned back to systems I enjoy more.
That said, my opinion of WotC's material is low enough that I figure even this unedited junk might improve on their stuff, or at least someone might be interested in turning it into something useful. Beware that I mean it when I say, "unedited:" there are places where I didn't resolve matters to my own satisfaction so the rules are contradictory, where I have sketches of ideas that I never fleshed out, where I didn't perform any copyediting whatosever, or combinations of all three.
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Iaimeki
  Journeyman
  Posts: 159
  Joined: Fri Mar 07, 2008 7:54 pm

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Post by Iaimeki » Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:15 pm

Object Lessons in Writing Prestige Classes People Want to Play
This is the first in what should be a short series of posts examining and reworking core (and perhaps a few splatbook) PrCs that no one in their right mind ever takes. My goal is to provide some insight into some of my theories of PrC design, what works and what doesn't, and how to build PrCs with sensible requirements, good flavor, and abilities that players care about.
Introduction to Hybrid Theory
There's been demand for hybrid caster/noncaster PrCs since almost the day third edition came out, because the basic mechanics of multiclassing and spellcasting make multiclassed spellcasters unplayable. However, it's hard to make even hybrid caster/noncaster PrCs because it's difficult to make sure they can do level-appropriate things. If a caster has lost two spell levels, they're casting spells like another character's cohort. If they lose any more than that, their casting is probably so weak they can't use it offensively at all. Even buffs and utility spells have a strong level-dependence, in some cases: fly is powerful at 5th-level because a huge swath of CR 5 monsters can't fly themselves and have no ranged attacks to speak of, teleportation effects are the only way to escape a lot of 4th-level and higher trap spells, and so forth. If a hybrid can't compete on casting (they rarely can), their other class features have to pick up the slack: however, they've invested some number of levels on featureless caster levels with poor BAB and skills. Aside from this, hybrids almost always have worse MAD than either the noncaster or the caster, so even given level-appropriate class features, they'll still be weaker unless they're given a slight power boost to compensate, or a way to reduce MAD.
A further problem is that many hybrid PrCs force characters trying to get into them to spend some number of levels as an ineffective gimp. If the PrC is no stronger than an ordinary PrC, they've just sucked for levels. If it gives them more power, it just creates balance problems once they get into the PrC. Hybrid PrC requirements should be designed to allow playable, organic builds to meet their requirements.
Before I get started, though, there are two base classes that need looking at.
The Druid Problem
There are two full divine casters in the third edition core. One of them gets noticeable class features at 1st level and 2 + Int skills. The other gets 4 + Int skills from a better list and class features that range from good to amazing, with only a few dead levels. You might think that the latter's spell list must be noticeably worse to justify all the extra benefits it gets, but you'd be wrong: at least up until 6th- or 7th-level spells, where it fades compared to wizards and the other divine caster, it's fully as dangerous as any other full caster. The only penalty it pays is the loss of a spell slot per level, which hardly serves to balance what it gets.
I'm talking, of course, about the druid. The 3.5 druid is an example of game design gone horribly wrong: not only is it too powerful, but the rules pertaining to it are so tangled it's not even clear what it can do. The exact reasons seem to involve a combination of deliberate sabotage by the designers, crawling feature creep, and good old-fashioned incompetence. The reason I feel compelled to talk about it here is the special problems it introduces for PrC design: specifically, clerics want to take almost any prestige class because they get nothing after first level, while prestige classes have to offer druids amazing features to even be worth considering. It's not possible to write a prestige class that's interesting to both clerics and druids the way it's possible to write one that's interesting to both sorcerers and wizards. It isn't really possible to fix this problem just changing the druid class itself, but altering the druid class features can ameliorate it.
Enough is enough. I'm going to write a druid with clear rules and somewhat more sane game balance.
Druid
"You better start telling me what I want to know or I'll feed you to my pet crocodile."
Let's get something straight: the idea of reverence towards nature didn't occur to humans until after they'd almost finished killing it. Premodern peoples didn't worship nature because they thought it was cute and cuddly, they worshipped it because it terrified them. Medieval European farmers hated wolves because any sheep the wolves ate could mean the difference between surviving the winter or starving to death. Tigers in India ate people and lived in huge dense forests so no one could do a damn thing about them. And all this happened besides the natural events like the fluctuations in the bison herds or rainfall that could determine the fates of entire societies.
If nature is capricious and dangerous in the real world, it's doubly so in D&D. Even aside from hostile nonhuman societies, D&D contains all sorts of monsters that consider entire humanoid armies a light snack. Druids are not pacifistic nature priests, they're crazy people who make friends with monsters and serve an ideal that probably involves the destruction of all civilization. But that's ok&mdash;if D&D can handle entire cultures dedicated to serving gods of Evil and Chaos, it can handle some anachronistic ecoterrorists.
Playing a Druid: A druid is the closest thing in the D&D core to a true hybrid class, since they wield offensive magic to equal a wizard's, when wild shaped they can beat the stuffing out of things in melee, and they have decent skills to boot. Thus, they're good choices for players who can't make up their minds.
Alignment: A druid can be of any alignment. Seriously, the neutral thing comes from a ridiculous and incoherent concept of what alignment means, and in D&D things with all sorts of alignments are as "natural" as animals and plant creatures.
Races: Members of any race can become druids, but druidism is most popular in places where making nice with the local flora and fauna is a good means of extending one's lifespan.
Starting Gold: 2d4x10 (50 gp)
Starting Age: As druid.
Hit Die: d8.
Class Skills: The druid's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Jump (Str), Knowledge (dungeoneering) (Int), Knowledge (geography) (Int), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Skill Points/Level: 2 + Int Modifier.
BAB: Medium (3/4), Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good.
Level, Abilities:
1 Shapechanger, spells, wild shape
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Spells: As the PHB druid, but she can't spontaneously cast summon nature's ally spells.
Shapechanger: If a druid doesn't already have it, she gains the shapechanger subtype.
Wild Shape (Su): A druid can assume the appearance of another creature, either a specific individual or a generic example. She is effectively disguised, and gains a +10 bonus on Disguise checks made to impersonate the genuine article. She suffers no penalties to Disguise for assuming the visage of a different race or sex. She may speak any languages she knows in any form she assumes. Changing form takes a standard action.
All items she's carrying or wearing meld into her new form when she uses wild shape. She can't use weapons and loses the Armor Class bonus from her armor, but gains an armor bonus to her Armor Class equal to 4 plus the level of the highest-level druid spell she has prepared plus any magical enhancement on her armor or clothing. She retains any other continuous bonuses from magic equipment, but she can't activate melded items.
If she has a 1st-level or higher druid spell prepared, she can assume the appearance of an animal, magical beast, or vermin of Small or Medium size . If she has 4th-level druid spell prepared, she can assume Large size; a 6th-level druid spell, Tiny size; and an 8th-level druid spell, Huge size. She gains ability bonuses, natural armor, movement modes, and reach according to the list below. She gains a single natural weapon which deals bite damage, unless she has a 3rd-level or higher druid spell prepared, in which case she may instead gain two primary natural weapons that deal claw damage and a single secondary natural weapon that deals bite damage.

- Tiny &mdash; -8 Strength, +4 Dexterity, 20' land speed or 60' swim speed, reach 0', bites/gores deal 1d3 and claws/stings/slams deal 1d2 damage.
- Small &mdash; -4 Strength, +2 Dexterity, 40' land speed or 60' swim speed, reach 5', bites/gores deal 1d4 and claws/stings/slams 1d3 damage.
- Medium &mdash; 40' land speed or 60' swim speed, reach 5', bites/gores deal 1d6 and claws/stings/slams 1d4 damage.
- Large &mdash; +6 Strength, -2 Dexterity, +2 natural armor, 50' land speed or 60' swim speed, reach 5', bites/gores deal 1d8 and claws/stings/slams 1d6 damage.
- Huge &mdash; +12 Strength, -4 Dexterity, +4 natural armor, 50' land speed or 60' swim speed, reach 10', bites/gores deal 2d6 and claws/stings/slams 1d8 damage.

If she assumes a swim speed, she gains the aquatic subtype and can breathe water, but not air. She gains low-light vision, a bonus equal to the level of the highest-level druid spell she has prepared to any two of Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Spot, Survival, or Swim checks, and

- Climb: She gains a climb speed equal to her land speed.
- Fast: Her burrow, climb, and land speeds (if any) increase by 10', her swim speed (if any) increases by 20', and her fly speed (if any) increases by 10' if she's Tiny or Small, 30' if she's Medium, or 40' if she's Large or Huge.
- Flight: She gains a fly speed of 50' (good), 60' (good), or 80' (average) when Tiny- or Small-, Medium-, or Large or Huge-sized, respectively. Flying creatures get an additional -2 Strength and +2 Dexterity, added to the normal bonuses and penalties from shapeshifting.
- Improved Grab: If she hits with a natural weapon, she can attempt to start a grapple without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity.
- Marine: She can only take this if she has a land speed. She gains a 40' swim speed and the ability to hold her breath for a number of rounds equal to 4 &times; her Constitution score.
- Pounce: She can make a full attack, with natural weapons only, after a charge.
- Poison: She may cause her primary natural weapon (if she only has one) or her secondary weapon (if she has three) to be poisonous, delivering a poison that deals 1d6 primary and secondary Strength, Dexterity, or Constitution damage; the save DC of the poison is equal to 10 + the level of the highest-level druid spell she has prepared + her Constitution modifier.
- Rend: She may only take this if she has two claw attacks. If she hits with both claws, she rends for twice her claw damage plus 1&frac12; times her Strength modifier.
- Scent.
- Trample: She can make a trample attack (DC 10 + &frac12; her character level + her Strength modifier), dealing slam damage + 1&frac12; her Strength modifier.
- Trip: If she hits with a natural weapon, she can attempt to trip her opponent without making a touch attack or provoking an attack of opportunity. If the attempt fails, her opponent cannot attempt to trip her in return.

[*] 2nd Tremorsense 60'.
[*] 3rd Blindsense: She gains blindsense with a range of 120'.
[*] Energy Damage: Her natural weapons deal an extra 1d6 acid, cold, electricity, or fire damage; she selects the type when she uses her shapeshifting ability. She may use this talent multiple times with the same form to add extra dice of energy damage, of the same or different types.
It seems like this ability can do a lot of damage, and, well, it can. You have lots of attacks and you can stack energy damage on them. However, there are other characters that can do as much or more damage: rogues with full sneak attack and appropriate weapon choice can equal or exceed a shapeshifter's damage output, and there are lots of other ways to do it too.
Also, energy resistances and immunities are more common than physical equivalents. It's not even unusual for high-CR monsters to have one or two energy immunities combined with resistances against other forms of energy. Moreover, energy resistances tend to be much higher than damage reduction, ranging from 10-30 rather than 5-15. Energy damage seems strong, but it's not overpowering compared to similar options available to other characters.
[*] Hands: She can assume a form with a pair of hands, but she must forfeit all but one of her natural attacks. When she changes to a form with hands, her held equipment doesn't meld, and any held equipment that melded earlier reappears. She can make attacks, wield shields, manipulate items, and perform other tasks requiring hands.
[*] Hungerless: She does not need to eat while using this talent.
[*] Keen Sight: She gains darkvision to 60' and low-light vision.
Restricting pounce to natural weapons prevents the abuse of valorous lances and similar items. It doesn't stop frenzied berserkers and Combat Brute/Leap Attack/Shock Trooper nonsense, but this class can't fix those problems.
[*] Resistance to Energy: She gains resistance to acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage equal to 5 + her character level; she selects the energy type when she uses her shapeshifting ability. She may use this talent multiple times with the same form to gain resistances to multiple energy types.
[*] Scent: She gains the scent ability.
[*] Skills: She gains a bonus equal to one-half her character level to any two of Balance, Climb, Escape Artist, Hide, Jump, Listen, Move Silently, Search, Spot, Survival, or Swim checks; she chooses which pair of skills when she selects this talent. She may use this ability multiple times with the same form to gain bonuses to multiple skills, but bonuses to the same skill do not stack.
[*] Sleepless: She does not need to sleep while using this talent and gains immunity to sleep effects.
[*] Spell Resistance: She gains spell resistance equal to 5 + her character level.
[/list]
Wild shape does not stack with any other effect that causes the
druid to change form.
Balance Analysis
Bonus Feature: Character Replacement Wild Shape
Wild Shape (Su): If she has a 1st-level-or-higher spell prepared, a druid may turn into an animal or vermin. If she has a 7th-or-higher-level spell prepared she may turn into a plant creature. If she has a 9th-or-higher-level spell prepared she may turn into an air, earth, fire or water elemental. While in the new form, she retains her alignment, personality and goals, but takes on the creature's mentality; she will continue to act as she would within the limits of the creature's intelligence and abilities. The creature she chooses must have a CR of less than twice her highest-level prepared spell's level minus three, or have a fractional CR if she uses this ability with a 1st-level spell, may not have the incorporeal or swarm subtype, and is unexceptional for its type.
When she transforms, she may set either a duration, a trigger condition, or both: when the duration elapses or the trigger condition occurs, she returns to her true form. The trigger condition must be something the creature she turns into can understand and recognize. If the time when she prepares spells passes twice or she is killed while still transformed, she also returns to her true form. Transforming in either direction requires a standard action.
Any spells or effects on her end when she transforms (in either direction), but damage (lethal, nonlethal, and ability) remains. Any gear worn or carried by the druid melds into the new form and becomes nonfunctional. When the druid reverts to her true form, any objects previously melded into the new form reappear in the same location on her body that they previously occupied and are once again functional. Any new items worn in the assumed form fall off and land at the druid's feet.
The Sorcerer Problem
The sorcerer has been the red-headed stepchild of D&D since the first day of third edition. Apparently, the designers were so terrified of the awesome power of spontaneous casting that they overcorrected and ended up writing a class that wizard all but dominates. (Or, if you believe the conspiracy theorists, they loved Vancian casting so much they ensured that the non-Vancian caster would remain forever inferior to its Vancian counterpart.)
The logic showing wizards are better than sorcerers is so obvious that it's honestly more comical than anything that people still argue that the sorcerer is balanced. At odd levels (excepting 1st), a wizard casts spells of a level higher than a sorcerer. At even levels (excepting 2nd), a specialist wizard has three spell slots at their highest level of spells, the same as the sorcerer, and the sorcerer has only a single spell known at that same level. If the wizard wants, they can just prepare three copies of the same spell and imitate the sorcerer. Spontaneous casting isn't an advantage when you only know a single spell! As far as highest level spells are concerned, everything the sorcerer does, the wizard does better; and highest-level spells are most of a caster's power. That the sorcerer also gets the shaft in many other ways, starting with metamagic and the total absence of class features and continuing to the lack of good sourcebook support, only adds insult to injury.
The sorcerer is a particular problem for PrC design, because its staggered casting means that what's an already weak class with no class features gets further screwed on entry requirements unless you use arcane caster level instead of specific spells or spell levels. It also means that a sorcerer-hybrid who's lost a level of casting is casting the same spells as a wizard cohort. Both of these things are bad and problematic, so I'm going to rewrite the sorcerer to work with PrCs in a more sensible way.
My intuition says that spontaneous casting from a small spells-known list is at least roughly balanced against prepared casting from a much larger list. Under this assumption, I'm going to rewrite the sorcerer to be a caster with more on-the-fly versatility, to contrast against the wizard's ability to choose their available spells anew each day.
Sorcerer
"Fools! Have a taste of my true power!"
Unlike wizards, who learn magic through careful study, or clerics and druids, who receive their magic from gods or ideals, sorcerers are magic. A lot of sorcerers believe they come from dragons' notorious proclivity for interbreeding with other creatures, but there are other sorcerers who claim descent from practically anything that might have ever interbred with members of the mortal races, and some things that couldn't. Other sorcerers think their powers derive from crazed magical experiments or simply living too long next to a potent source of magical energy. Whatever. The only thing all sorcerers have in common is that their powers are innate.
Playing a Sorcerer: Some people have given bad advice suggesting that the sorcerer is a good class for introducing players to casters. It isn't. It's true that a sorcerer doesn't have to juggle as many spells on a daily basis, but they still have to select spells from the same giant list wizards do, and worse, if they pick a bad one they can't go back and correct it the next day. No, sorcerers are best for experienced players who already know what the good spells are and how to get the most out of them, and are interested in the sorcerer's tactical versatility, flavor, or absence of any need for spellbook munging.
Alignment: A sorcerer can be of any alignment.
Races: Members of any race can become sorcerers, though human sorcerers are perhaps most common because humans are known for their lack of particularity in their romantic liaisons.
Starting Gold: 3d4x10 (75 gp)
Starting Age: As sorcerer.
Hit Die: d4.
Class Skills: The sorcerer's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (the planes) (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), and Use Magic Device (Cha).
Skill Points/Level: 2 + Int Modifier.
BAB: Poor (1/2), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good.

Code: Select all

    Lvl  Ability                           Spells/Day
                                           0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
    1st  Eschew Materials, summon familiar 4  2  -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
    2nd                                    5  3  -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
    3rd                                     5  3  2  -- -- -- -- -- -- --
    4th                                     5  4  3  -- -- -- -- -- -- --
    5th  Bonus feat                    5  4  3  2  -- -- -- -- -- --
    6th                                     5  4  4  3  -- -- -- -- -- --
    7th                                     5  5  4  3  2  -- -- -- -- --
    8th                                     5  5  4  4  3  -- -- -- -- --
    9th                                     5  5  5  4  3  2  -- -- -- --
    10th Bonus feat                   5  5  5  4  4  3  -- -- -- --
    11th                                   5  5  5  5  4  3  2  -- -- --
    12th                                   5  5  5  5  4  4  3  -- -- --
    13th                                   5  5  5  5  5  4  3  2  -- --
    14th                                   5  5  5  5  5  4  4  3  -- --
    15th Bonus feat                   5  5  5  5  5  5  4  3  2  --
    16th                                   5  5  5  5  5  5  4  4  3  --
    17th                                   5  5  5  5  5  5  5  4  3  2
    18th                                   5  5  5  5  5  5  5  4  4  3
    19th                                   5  5  5  5  5  5  5  5  4  4
    20th Bonus feat                   5  5  5  5  5  5  5  5  5  5

Code: Select all

    Level  Spells Known
           0  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9
    1st    4  2  -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
    2nd    5  3  -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
    3rd    5  3  2  -- -- -- -- -- -- --
    4th    6  4  3  -- -- -- -- -- -- --
    5th    6  4  3  2  -- -- -- -- -- --
    6th    7  5  4  3  -- -- -- -- -- --
    7th    7  5  4  3  2  -- -- -- -- --
    8th    8  5  5  4  3  -- -- -- -- --
    9th    8  5  5  5  3  2  -- -- -- --
    10th   9  5  5  5  4  3  -- -- -- --
    11th   9  5  5  5  4  3  2  -- -- --
    12th   9  5  5  5  5  4  3  -- -- --
    13th   9  5  5  5  5  4  3  2  -- --
    14th   9  5  5  5  5  5  4  3  -- --
    15th   9  5  5  5  5  5  4  3  2  --
    16th   9  5  5  5  5  5  4  4  3  --
    17th   9  5  5  5  5  5  4  4  3  2
    18th   9  5  5  5  5  5  4  4  4  3
    19th   9  5  5  5  5  5  4  4  4  3
    20th   9  5  5  5  5  5  4  4  4  4

All of the following are class features of the sorcerer.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Sorcerers are proficient with all simple weapons. They are not proficient with any type of armor or shield. Armor of any type interferes with a sorcerer's gestures, which can cause his spells with somatic components to fail.
Spells: As the PHB sorcerer, but using the Spells Known and Spells/Day tables listed above. A sorcerer may exchange spells as long they're at least one level below the highest level he can cast. When a sorcerer applies a metamagic feat to a spell, the casting time does not change unless the metamagic feat itself affects the casting time (e.g., Quicken).
Eschew Materials: A sorcerer gains Eschew Materials as a bonus feat at first level. If he already has this feat, he gains any metamagic feat he meets the prerequisities for as a bonus feat instead.
Summon Familiar: As PHB.
Bonus Feat: At 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th levels, a sorcerer gains a metamagic or Affinity feat he meets the prerequisites for as a bonus feat.
Balance Analysis
This revised sorcerer gets the same number of spells/day as a specialist wizard, and learns the same number of highest-level spells as a wizard on odd levels, while being one spell behind on even levels. (The sorcerer learns two highest-level spells at an odd level, but only one on an even level, while the wizard learns two every level.) All told, a wizard gets 5+their starting Int bonus in 1st-level spells, and 36 other spells, generally four per level. A sorcerer knows five spells per level below 6th-level, and four spells above it, for a total of 41.
What does this mean? Before scribing, this sorcerer is better than a wizard, because it knows about the same number of spells and casts spontaneously. However, this doesn't bother me, because wizards have access to scribing in the vast majority of campaigns, and being able to cherry-pick utility spells for specific circumstances, obscure spells for crafting, and good spells that one wants to cast but not every day (permanency, planar binding) is at least as good as spontaneous casting once the wizard is able to get a decent selection of spells to pull from. Meanwhile, there are lots of other ways for wizards to get more spells known (PrCs, feats, and racial substitutions), imitate some sorcerer features (Sudden metamagic feats, metamagic rods), or exploit prepared casting (the magic items and spells from Complete Mage that allow switching of spells after preparation). In an environment with typical amounts of noncore material and scribing, I don't think this revised sorcerer will outshine wizards at all.
If, for some reason, your campaign has severe restrictions on wizards to the point where this sorcerer would dominate them, reduce the sorcerer's spells/day by one for each level, putting their spells/day on a par with what an unspecialized wizard gets.
Monsters and the Old Sorcerer
Monsters were balanced for the casting they have, so I don't suggest changing that. Instead, I suggest calling the old sorcerer "hedge mage" and make it an NPC class, and having monsters cast like hedge mages.
Affinity Feats
In addition to all the other crap WotC has done to sorcerers over the years, it's made a point of ensuring that most options given to sorcerers are unhelpful or, in some cases, actively harmful. A good example of this are the heritage feats. The idea first appeared in Dragon Magazine, as bloodline feats that granted sorcerers one extra spell known/level, and opened access to other feats, of varying quality. The original bloodline feats are one of the few examples in any official D&D material of feats that provide level-appropriate benefits, even in the context of patching a weak class. Thus, of course, when WotC published its own versions of heritage feats in Complete Arcane, it nerfed them to the point of unplayability, for instance giving a four-feat requirement for the feats that granted extra spells known, reducing the number of spells they offered, and making the spells worse. Since then, it's printed more heritage feats, in the Player's Handbook 2 and Complete Mage, and while the quality has varied, they're still unplayable with the occasional exception of weird things one can do with them to get crazy abilities at certain levels.
Affinity feats are like heritage feats, only they provide level-appropriate or scaling benefits. I call them "affinity" feats to distinguish them from their WotC relatives, and to recognize the fact that not every sorcerer got her powers from ancestors who fooled around with dragons.
All Affinity feats require one level of sorcerer. You can only take one Affinity feat that has no prerequisites.
Draconic Affinity Feats
Dragon Descendant [Affinity]
Your great-great-great-great-grandmother was a dragon.
Benefit: Choose a color of dragon. You gain a special ability possessed by your draconic ancestor and additional sorcerer spells known based on the color; you may not exchange these spells for others, as you may with other sorcerer spells.
Black: Water breathing (Ex); charm animal (1st), darkness, deeper darkness (3rd), plant growth (3rd), insect plague (5th), creeping doom, and mass charm monster.
Blue: Sound imitation (Ex); create water (0), ventriloquism, hallucinatory terrain, mirage arcana, veil, and screen.
Brass: Speak with animals (always active) (Su); endure elements, suggestion, control winds (5th), control weather, and summon monster VII.
Bronze: Water breathing (Ex); speak with animals (1st), fog cloud, detect thoughts, create food and water (3rd), control water, and control weather.
Copper: Spider climb (Ex); stone shape, transmute rock to mud, transmute mud to rock, wall of stone, and move earth.
Gold: Water breathing (Ex); bless, alter self, cloudkill, geas/quest, sunburst, and foresight.
Green: Water breathing (Ex); entangle (1st), suggestion, plant growth (3rd), dominate person, and command plants.
Red: You gain +1 to your effective sorcerer caster level, and +1 to your effective character level for determining the benefits of Affinity with Dragon Descendant as a prerequisite; locate object, fireball, suggestion, find the path (6th), and discern location.
Silver: Cloud walking (Su); feather fall, fog cloud, control winds (5th), control weather, and reverse gravity.
White: Ice walking (Ex); fog cloud, gust of wind, wall of ice, freezing fog [Spell Compendium], and control weather.
Draconic Breath [Affinity]
You can breathe fire, or something.
Prerequisite: Dragon Descendant.
Benefit: You gain a breath weapon whose energy type and shape depends on your dragon ancestor. Using your breath weapon takes a standard action, and you can't breathe again until 1d4 rounds later. Your breath weapon has a Reflex save DC of 10 + &frac12; your character level + your Constitution modifier; its damage and size are based on your character level. If it's a line, it's always 5 ft. high and 5 ft. wide, with length depending on your character level. If it's a cone, its length depends on your character level, and it's always as wide and high as it is long.
Character level, line (length), cone (length), damage dice
1st, 30 ft., 15 ft., 1d4
2nd-3rd, 40 ft., 20 ft., 1d6
4th-6th, 60 ft., 30 ft., 2d4
7th-11th, 80 ft., 40 ft., 2d6
12th-19th, 100 ft., 50 ft., 2d8
20th, 120 ft., 60 ft., 2d10
Black: Line of acid.
Blue: Line of lightning.
Brass: Line of fire.
Bronze: Line of lightning.
Copper: Line of acid.
Gold: Cone of fire.
Green: Cone of corrosive gas (acid).
Red: Cone of fire.
Silver: Cone of cold.
White: Cone of cold.
Draconic Breath, Metallic [Affinity]
You possess the unusual breath weapon of your metallic heritage.
Prerequisite: Dragon Breath, Dragon Descendant.
Benefit: You gain access to your metallic ancestor's breath weapon. Shapes and save DCs are the same as for your energy breath weapon, and they share the same refresh time.
Brass: A cone of sleep. Creatures within the cone must succeed on a Will save or fall asleep, regardless of Hit Dice, for 1d6 rounds plus 1 round for each two character levels you have.
Bronze: A cone of repulsion gas. Creatures within the cone must succeed on a Will save or be compelled to do nothing but move away from you for 1d6 rounds plus 1 round for each two character levels you have. This is a mind-affecting compulsion enchantment effect.
Copper: A cone of slow gas. Creatures within it must succeed on a Fortitude save or be slowed for 1d6 rounds plus 1 round for each two character levels you have.
Gold: A cone of weakening gas. Creatures within it must succeed on a Fortitude save or take 1 Strength damage plus 1 Strength damage for each three character levels you have.
Silver: A cone of paralyzing gas. Creatures within it are paralyzed for 1d6 rounds plus 1 round for each three character levels you have.
Draconic Domain [Affinity]
You have an affinity for a divine domain because of your ancestry.
Prerequisite: Dragon Descendant.
Benefit: Select a domain that belongs to your draconic ancestor. You gain the granted power of the domain and you add the domain's spells to your sorcerer spell list, allowing you to learn and cast them as normal.
Blue: Air, Evil, Law.
Red: Chaos, Evil, Fire.
Brass: Chaos, Knowledge.
Bronze: Animal, Law, Water.
Copper: Chaos, Earth, Trickery.
Gold: Good, Law, Luck.
Silver: Air, Good, Law, Sun.
Special: You may not select this feat if your ancestor was a black, green, or white dragon. You may select feat multiple times; each time, you gain a different domain.
Draconic Senses [Affinity]
Your senses are as keen as a dragon's.
Prerequisite: Dragon Descendant.
Benefit: You see four times as well as a human in shadowy illumination and twice as well in normal light. You also gain darkvision out to 120 feet and blindsense out to 60 feet.
Outer Plane Affinity Feats
Anarchic Affinity [Affinity]
Your powers come from Giant Frog. And chaos. It's best not to ask how.
Benefit: You gain sonic resistance 5. Add color spray, major image, confusion, hallucinatory terrain, insanity, and maze to your spells known; you may not exchange these spells for others, as may with normal sorcerer spells.
Axiomatic Affinity [Affinity]
Your powers derive from the fundamental principle of order in the world, or maybe you're related to giant ants. Who knows?
Benefit: You gain fast healing 1. Add mending, make whole (2nd), charm monster, geas, mark of justice (4th), fabricate, and dominate monster to your spells known; you may not exchange these spells for others, as may with normal sorcerer spells.
Celestial Affinity [Affinity]
You have a close relationship with the powers of Good. Maybe you're descended from an angel, maybe you're just blessed.
Benefit: You gain a +4 bonus on saves against poison. Add protection from evil, speak with animals, daylight, magic circle against evil, tongues, teleport, and mass charm monster to your spells known; you may not exchange these spells for others, as may with normal sorcerer spells.
Infernal Affinity [Affinity]
You or your bloodline are tainted with the evil powers of the lower planes.
Benefit: You gain the ability to communicate telepathically with any creature that speaks a language within 100 feet. Add darkness, invisibility, major image, teleport, eyebite, and unholy aura (8th) to your spells known. You may take Fiend feats, provided you're willing to pay the price.
Planar Resistance [Affinity]
Prerequisite: Anarchic Affinity or Axiomatic Affinity or Celestial Affinity or Infernal Affinity.
Benefit: You gain resistance to acid, cold, electricity, and fire equal to your character level.
Inner Plane Affinity Feats
Air Affinity [Affinity]
You can dance with the winds.
Benefit: Air mastery (Ex). Add feather fall, invisibility, fly, control winds (5th), overland flight, and control weather to your spells known; you may not exchange these spells for others, as may with normal sorcerer spells.
Earth Affinity [Affinity]
Your magic is as solid and inflexible as the earth.
Benefit: Earth Mastery (Ex). Add grease, shatter, stone shape, wall of stone, move earth, and stone tell to your spells known; you may not exchange these spells for others, as may with normal sorcerer spells.
Fire Affinity [Affinity]
You can set things on fire with your mind.
Benefit: Fire resistance 5 (Ex). Add wall of smoke [Spell Compendium], glitterdust, fireball, fire seeds, delayed blast fireball, and incendiary cloud to your spells known; you may not exchange these spells for others, as may with normal sorcerer spells.
Water Affinity [Affinity]
Your powers derive from the seas, or at least large lakes.
Benefit: Water breathing (Ex). Add obscuring mist, sleet storm, solid fog, control water, acid fog, and control weather to your spells known; you may not exchange these spells for others, as may with normal sorcerer spells.
Shadow Affinity [Affinity]
Your magic comes from darkness and the Plane of Shadow.
Benefit: You gain darkvision out to 60 feet. Add shadow spray [Spell Compendium], shadow binding [Spell Compendium], evard's black tentacles, shadow evocation, shadow walk, and shades to your spells known; you may not exchange these spells for others, as may with normal sorcerer spells.
Fey Child [Affinity]
You were abducted by faeries as an infant and raised in a mound, or else you inherited your powers from a faerie ancestor in the usual boring way.
Benefit: Low-light vision (Ex). Select any 1st-level sorcerer/wizard or druid spell: you may use it as a spell-like ability once per day, with caster level equal to your character level. The save DC is Charisma-based. Add charm person, invisibility, deep slumber, dimension door, permanent image, and irresistible dance to your spells known; you may not exchange these spells for others, as may with normal sorcerer spells.
Generic Affinity Feats
Affine Immunity [Affinity]
You display unusual resistance to some energies or magics.
Prerequisite: Air Affinity or Anarchic Affinity or Axiomatic Affinity or Celestial Affinity or Dragon Descendant or Earth Affinity or Fey Child or Fire Affinity or Infernal Affinity or Shadow Affinity or Water Affinity.
Benefit: You gain one immunity based on your affinity.
Anarchic: Sonic.
Axiomatic: Cold, poison, or petrification.
Celestial: Acid, cold, electricity, or petrification.
Dragon, Black: Acid.
Dragon, Blue: Electricity.
Dragon, Brass: Fire.
Dragon, Bronze: Electricity.
Dragon, Copper: Acid.
Dragon, Gold: Fire.
Dragon, Green: Acid.
Dragon, Red: Fire.
Dragon, Silver: Acid or cold.
Dragon, White: Cold.
Infernal: Electricity, fire, or poison.
Special: If your affinity has multiple immunities listed, you may take this feat multiple times. Each time, you gain a different immunity.
Affine Resilience [Affinity]
You have unusual resilience against physical damage.
Prerequisite: Anarchic Affinity or Axiomatic Affinity or Celestial Affinity or Dragon Descendant or Fey Child or Infernal Affinity.
Benefit: You gain damage reduction equal to your character level; the type depends on your Affinity feat. If you have natural weapons, you also gain the ability to penetrate appropriate other damage reduction as normal, if any.
Anarchic: Lawful-aligned weapons pierce your damage reduction.
Axiomatic: Chaotic-aligned weapons pierce your damage reduction.
Celestial: Evil-aligned weapons pierce your damage reduction.
Dragon, All: Magic weapons pierce your damage reduction. You also gain immunity to paralysis and sleep effects, and spell resistance equal to 5 + your character level.
Fey: Cold iron weapons pierce your damage reduction.
Infernal: Good-aligned weapons pierce your damage reduction.
Special: Alignment and cold iron damage reduction are supernatural abilities.
Fey Descendant [Affinity]
Prerequisite: Celestial Affinity.
Benefit:
Last edited by Iaimeki on Sat Apr 26, 2008 3:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Iaimeki
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Post by Iaimeki » Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:18 pm

Caster Multiclass Patch PrCs
Arcane Trickster
"Your honor, it may be true that my client seduced the Baron's daughter with a charm spell and replaced the family's heirloom sword with a permanent image, but that does not prove she was the murderer!"
The arcane trickster, of the core hybrid PrCs, is the closest to playability, for two reasons: it gives full spell-casting advancement, and it's based on rogue, the best non-casting class in the core. Unfortunately, its requirements ensure that every arcane trickster is a bad rogue and a bad arcane caster. It needs low enough requirements to be viable while not becoming overpowered.
Let's start by bracketing what an arcane trickster should be able to do. A rogue or caster can burn a feat to take Leadership and get a cohort who is two levels behind them. Thus, an arcane trickster who's two levels behind in both rogue and caster is obviously inferior, because they have only cohort-level abilities in both of their specialties, one-half the actions and hit points, and they've invested more than a single feat. A true gestalt caster-rogue is probably too strong. It's obviously stronger than either class in itself. Since rogue doesn't have any notably good PrCs, it's obviously better than almost all rogue builds. I'm not sure whether it's better than a good
PrCs, like incantatrix, probably don't add as much to a caster as the rogue's abilities. This bracketing leaves only one reasonable possibility: the equivalent of one level behind in both rogue and caster.
It's pretty clear and decisive what this means for the caster portion: the class or its requirements need to force the loss of a level of spellcasting. Since casting is so level-dependent and is also the only significant class feature casters get, this is literally the only thing that one can do. Rogues are different: they get two major scaling abilities, sneak attack and skills, and static abilities available at certain levels. Because of the way skills work, skills are either level-appropriate or pointless, so the only way to make the arcane trickster less skilled than the rogue is to decrease the skill points per level, decreasing the trickster's breadth. Sneak attack scales strangely, because the marginal benefit of each additional die decreases. (If D&D had a more consistent hit point system, there might be a consistent difference between the number of successful attacks necessary to drop something, producing breakpoints in sneak attack. However, hit points in D&D vary radically.) The difference between +10d6 sneak attack and +9d6 is much smaller than that between +2d6 and +1d6. My intuition says the right way to handle this, given D&D's geometric power progression in levels, is to scale an arcane trickster's damage output to be a constant fraction of a rogue's, as much as possible. Handling the static abilities is something I will have to ad hoc: giving level-appropriate abilities when possible, and trying not to overshadow rogues by giving arcane tricksters everything.
Prerequisites:
Skills: Bluff 5, Decipher Script 5, Disable Device 4, Knowledge (arcana) 4, Sleight of Hand 4.
Special: Sneak attack +1d6.
Spells: Ability to cast mage hand and 1st-level arcane spells.
Hit Die: d4.
Class Skills: The arcane trickster's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Appraise (Int), Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Disable Device (Int), Disguise (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Forgery (Int), Gather Information (Cha), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Open Lock (Dex), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Magic Device (Cha), and Use Rope (Dex).
Skill Points/Level: 4 + Int Modifier.
BAB: Poor (1/2), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Good; Will: Good.
Level, Abilities:
1 Evasion, +1 arcane spellcasting level
2 Sneak attack +1d6, +1 arcane spellcasting level
3 Ranged legerdemain 1/day, +1 arcane spellcasting level
4 Impromptu sneak attack 1/day, +1 arcane spellcasting level
5 Sneak attack +2d6, +1 arcane spellcasting level
6 Ranged legerdemain 2/day, +1 arcane spellcasting level
7 Impromptu sneak attack 2/day, +1 arcane spellcasting level
8 Sneak attack +3d6, +1 arcane spellcasting level
9 Special ability, +1 arcane spellcasting level
10 Ranged legerdemain 3/day, +1 arcane spellcasting level
11 Sneak attack +4d6, , +1 arcane spellcasting level
12 Special ability, +1 arcane spellcasting level
13 Impromptu sneak attack 3/day, +1 arcane spellcasting level
14 Sneak attack +5d6, +1 arcane spellcasting level
15 Special ability, +1 arcane spellcasting level
16 Ranged legerdemain 4/day, +1 arcane spellcasting level
17 Sneak attack +6d6, +1 arcane spellcasting level
18 Special ability, +1 arcane spellcasting level
All of the following are class features of the arcane trickster prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Arcane tricksters gain no
proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Spellcasting: Every level, an arcane trickster casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if she had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class she had previous to gaining that level.
Ranged Legerdemain: As DMG, once per day at 3rd level, twice per day at 6th, thrice per day at tenth, and four times per day at sixteenth.
Impromptu Sneak Attack: As DMG, once per day at fourth level, twice per day at seventh, and thrice per day at thirteenth.
Special Ability:: At 9th, 12th, 15th, and 18th levels, an arcane trickster can select a rogue special ability.
Balance Analysis
I intend for characters to enter my new version of the trickster at 3rd level, as rogue 1/caster 1 builds. I tried to discourage rogue/bards from taking it for the simple reason that it's designed for full casters so advancing two-thirds casting with it is stupid. Taking a skirmish or sneak attack class costs one spellcasting level, so they'll always be a level behind.
I debated between poor and medium BAB, and decided to go for poor to encourage arcane tricksters to focus on their spells, rather than on using melee or thrown weapons. This means they're two levels behind on BAB even compared to a full caster, but there are ways to work around that (Tenser's transformation and skillful weapons, for instance), and they can still sneak attack with spells (scorching ray is an effective spell for this class, in some situations). Their sneak attack progression is about two-thirds that of a normal rogue, which hopefully means they can use sneak attack against fewer opponents than a rogue can. They lose uncanny dodge, the ability that defends rogues against other rogues, but get evasion and a rogue special ability a level late, though they do get four special abilities in the end. and while their skill list is better than a rogue's, they get fewer skill points per level so can't manage as much breadth. In general, I tried to offer them the choice of acting like a rogue in some circumstances, without allowing them to do everything rogues can.
Impromptu sneak attack and ranged ledgerdemain are flavorful but not that powerful abilities. Impromptu sneak attack helps compensate for the arcane trickster's inability to enter melee at low levels, when it's hard to get sneak attack at range, and later on can be useful for throwing spells when enemies have defenses against common ways of getting sneak attack. Ranged legerdemain is only useful in isolated circumstances, but might at least save the arcane trickster a spell slot when they come up.
I didn't do anything to reduce the character's MAD: there's lots of overlap between the abilities a rogue wants and the ones a caster wants, so they don't have it that bad in the first place, and MAD serves as a balancing factor by preventing an arcane trickster from maxing out Dex or Int/Cha the way a pure rogue or pure arcane caster can and thus making their attacks and save DCs not quite as high.
Let's run a rogue 1/wizard 1/arcane trickster 8 with 5th-level spells and +4d6 sneak attack through Frank and K's Same Game gauntlet.
A hall of magical runes: You don't have skill mastery, but you do have detect magic and dimension door. Sure win.
A fire giant: Honestly, you could probably take this thing down with grease and ray of frost if you needed to. Sure
win.
A young blue dragon: In melee, you can use a spell like shivering touch to kill it outright. At range, you have evasion and a decent reflex save, and can kill it with spells. You don't have many hit points, so there's a chance you'll just die horribly to bad luck, but you have the advantage. Likely win.
A bebilith: You probably have Spot, so there's a good chance you see it before it picks you up and eats you. If you do notice it, whether with Spot or a spell, you win because all of its abilities are close-range so you can trap it with something and kill it with something else. However, if you don't notice it, it eats you. Likely win.
A vrock: The vrock has good SR and good saves, energy resistances, and good skills, so probably survives both your spells and ambush tactics. Between mirror image, its chance to summon another vrock, the stunning screech, and the spores, it's likely to win any melee damage-off, so you're probably screwed. Likely loss.
A tag-team of mindflayers: Your Will save is good enough so you have a fighting chance not to get mind-blasted, and if you do succeed at avoiding that, you get to make mind-flayers explode with sneak attack or bomb them to death with spells. Likely win.
An evil necromancer: This depends a lot on the situation: whoever gets surprise or wins initiative wins, because you can do enough damage to drop him in a round, but if he hits you with a Fort-save-or-be-screwed, you'll be screwed. I call this a toss-up.
6 trolls: Fireballs or alchemists' fire, take your pick, either way they're dead. Sure win.
A horde of shadows: Fireballs or scrolls thereof make it easy to kill shadows, but chances are they'll be hiding in solid stone walls, pop out, and deal so much strength damage to you you'll be paralyzed before you get to finish them all. Likely loss.
Sure wins: 3
Likely wins: 3
Toss-up: 1
Likely losses: 2
The arcane trickster does a little too well, but this is a good level for it: it's not behind a level of spells and it just added a sneak attack die. It also doesn't do any better, really, than a well-designed non-core PrCed wizard or some of the RoW classes I've examined in this same test. I think this level of balance is about as well as I can do on paper: fine-tuning it further would require play-testing.
Eldritch Knight
"Yes, I do know how to use this sword I'm carrying. Would you like me to prove it to you?"
Unlike the arcane trickster, the eldritch knight is not based on a playable class at all, but rather on the ridiculous idea that full BAB is worth something. Of course, anyone with even a cursory understanding of the game's mechanics realizes that full BAB is worth close to nothing at all, particularly when the alternative is undiluted awesomeness like full spellcasting. However, people want a hybrid arcane-caster/melee class, judging by the number of times the concept's been reinvented, so I guess something like it ought to exist.
The basic problem with making this class work is that if you offered a wizard gestalt with the core fighter or barbarian, at the cost of a level of wizard casting, the wizard would not be crazy if they said no. Any class that makes a wizard drop a level of casting to get into it, therefore, has to have not only full BAB, but class features better than core fighter or barbarian offers. (The same is true of paladin, and probably ranger, though it's the most border-line case.)
To make a playable eldritch knight thus requires a whole new set of class features. I'm going to plunder ideas from several other takes on the same concept: spellsword, Raumathari battlemage, knight phantom, dragonslayer, and abjurant champion, among others. I'm also going to assume the rules from Races of War on the Edge, power attack and combat expertise as combat options rather than feats, and Combat feats that scale by BAB: these things improve "full BAB" as a class feature to something that a smart player might give a damn about. My revision of the eldritch knight will still work without the Races of War changes, but it won't compete--much like the rest of the full BAB classes don't compete with rogues and casters.
Prerequisites:
BAB: +1.
Feats: Still Spell.
Proficiencies: Must be proficient with all martial weapons, light armor, and shields.
Spells: Ability to cast 1st-level arcane spells.
Hit Die: d6.
Class Skills: The eldritch knight's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Skill Points/Level: 2 + Int Modifier.
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good.
Level, Abilities:
1 Familiar, martial focus, somatic skill, +1 arcane spellcasting level
2 Arcane strike, +1 arcane spellcasting level
3 Bonus feat, +1 arcane spellcasting level
4 Channel spell, +1 arcane spellcasting level
5 Enduring spells, +1 arcane spellcasting level
6 Improved Familiar, +1 arcane spellcasting level
7 Stilled casting, +1 arcane spellcasting level
8 Bonus feat, +1 arcane spellcasting level
9 Sudden Quicken, +1 arcane spellcasting level
10 Martial mage, +1 arcane spellcasting level
All of the following are class features of the eldritch knight prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Eldritch knights gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Spellcasting: Every level, a eldritch knight casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if he had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class he had previous to gaining that level.
Familiar: Eldritch knight levels stack with any other class levels that grant a familiar. If an eldritch knight does not already have a familiar, he may summon one; his eldritch knight level determines its abilities.
Martial Focus (Ex): An eldritch knight may imbue a masterwork melee weapon with magic, allowing it to act as a focus for his spells. Creating a martial focus requires a 24-hour ritual and 100 gp in magical enameling and gems to make the weapon suitable for this purpose. Once finished, an eldritch knight wielding his martial focus may cast any spell that has a material component or arcane focus with a cost less than 1 gp without needing that component or focus. For spells with foci or components that cost more than 1 gp, he must still have the component or focus at hand, as normal. An eldritch knight may only have one martial focus at a time, but may recreate or change it by repeating the ritual.
Somatic Skill (Ex): An eldritch knight has mastered using somatic components in armor and does not suffer arcane spell failure with any armor or shield he's proficient with.
Arcane Strike (Ex): Beginning at 2nd level, an eldritch knight deals 1d6 bonus damage in melee for each level of the highest-level arcane spell he has prepared or the highest-level arcane spell slot he has unused, or his level in eldritch knight, whichever is lower. These bonus damage dice only apply to attacks granted by Base Attack Bonus. He has the Edge on any opponents without spells or spell-like abilities.
Bonus Feat: At 3rd and 8th levels, an eldritch knight gains a bonus metamagic or Combat [fighter, for those not using RoW rules] feat; he must meet all prerequisites for this feat.
Channel Spell (Ex): Starting at 4th level, an eldritch knight may channel spells through his martial focus. For an eldritch knight to channel a spell, it must have a target, be a ray spell, or be an area spell that affects certain kinds of targets. The eldritch knight takes a single standard action to cast the spell and make a single melee attack that, if it hits, causes the spell to take effect. Spell resistance applies, and the channeled spell offers the same save or saves as the original spell; however, the eldritch knight gets a +3 bonus to penetrate spell resistance and a +2 bonus to save DCs with a channeled spell. An eldritch knight may hold the charge on a channeled spell, as normal for touch spells.
Enduring Spells (Ex): Beginning at 5th level, all of an eldritch knight's arcane spells have their durations doubled, as if he had applied the Extend Spell metamagic feat to them. This does not change their level or casting time. If he also has the Extend Spell metamagic feat, he can apply it to triple their durations.
Improved Familiar (Ex): At 6th level, an eldritch knight gains Improved Familiar as a bonus feat. If he already has Improved Familiar, he insteads gains a bonus metamagic or fighter [Combat, for those using RoW rules] feat he meets the prerequisities for.
Stilled Casting (Ex): Starting at 7th level, all of an eldritch knight's arcane spells are stilled, as if he had applied the Still Spell metamagic feat to them. This does not change their level or casting time.
Sudden Quicken (Ex): At 9th level, an eldritch knight gains Sudden Quicken as a bonus feat. If he already has Sudden Quicken, he insteads gains a bonus metamagic or fighter [Combat, for those using RoW rules] feat he meets the prerequisities for.
Martial Mage (Ex): Beginning at 10th level, an eldritch knight's Base Attack Bonus is equal to his highest arcane caster level, regardless of what class levels he has, but can't in any event be greater than his Hit Dice.
Balance Analysis
The idea behind this class is simple enough: it trades off a level of casting to be able to fight in melee. The abilities are generic, and many of them remove penalties rather than grant new choices. Martial focus and somatic skill are intended to allow the character to wear armor and wield weapons while casting spells, and stilled casting improves that, allowing them to even grapple and cast. Arcane strike gives an eldritch knight enough damage so they can compete in melee with a (RoW) barbarian or rogue: that is, enough damage so that dealing damage is a viable alternative to casting save-or-dies. Channel spell gives them a reason to be in melee, even if they're casting spells. I debated giving them an actual cohort, something like the planar cohort from the thaumaturge, but decided I didn't want to specify the flavor of the class that much, so I gave them familiar advancement and Improved Familiar (for the familiar's survivability) instead. Enduring spells and Sudden Quicken help put their casting into play even when they're making full attacks. Finally, martial mage lets them take other mage PrCs after finishing eldritch knight while continuing to advance their key abilities.
One major possible balance issue is if a caster finds a way to enter the class without multiclassing. There's no simple set of requirements that will enforce multiclassing into a non-casting class; however, I don't want to force weird multiclassing by having the eldritch knight itself drop a caster level. The easiest way to prevent this is to just ban the methods that allow such entrance: the dragonslayer PrC, the feat from Faerun that gives all martial proficiencies, and the way the outsider type grants martial proficiencies (as the Tome of Fiends mentions). Another more specific solution within in the rules is to simply add requirements that force players to take a level of a full-BAB class: for instance, requiring, "Must be able to rage, use combat focus, designate opponent, or have an ancestral weapon or favored enemy," will have the effect of forcing people to take one of five classes in a RoW-based environment. Generally, I'd suggest the best way to handle it is to have the players agree not to abuse the class.
I'll conclude with the eldritch knight's same game test: fighter 1/wizard 1/eldritch knight 8.
A hall of magical runes: Again, you have detect magic and dimension door. Sure win.
A fire giant: Grease it and use a bow. Sure win.
A young blue dragon: In melee, you win because of something like shivering touch. In ranged combat, you still probably do more damage than the dragon's lightning breath with spells. Likely win.
A bebilith: You get Spot, but with only 2+Int skills there's a reasonable chance your check isn't good enough to see the bebilith. This means it picks you up and eats you: with the Con poison and rend armor abilities, you don't stand much of a chance against it in melee.
A vrock: The vrock has good SR and good saves, energy resistances, and good skills, so doesn't die readily to spells. It has no ranged attacks, so it has to melee, and its melee damage is only decent, so you'll outdamage it; you also have better feat choices. However, it has more hit points, and if it succeeds at summoning another vrock, you'll get overwhelmed. I'll cast this a toss-up: it wins if it can summon, but if it can't, you have the advantage.
A tag-team of mindflayers: Your Will save is good enough so you'll probably escape getting mind-blasted. If you survive that, the flayers don't have enough hp to survive your melee or saves good enough to stop your spells. Likely win.
An evil necromancer: If you can get in range of him, you can probably kill him, especially if you have RoW Mageslayer. However, he probably has a Reflex-save-or-be screwed that will screw you. As usual, I think this is an initiative check. Toss-up.
6 trolls: Two or three fireballs and they're dead. Sure win.
A horde of shadows: Again, fireballs can kill shadows, but there's a good chance you won't get to use them because of ambush conditions. Likely loss.
Sure wins: 3
Likely wins: 2
Toss-up: 2
Likely losses: 2
Again, looks about right, but maybe a bit too strong. It would require play testing to see better where to nerf.
Mystic Theurge
"I have all the magic."
The failure of the mystic theurge is simple: being able to cast like your cohort's cohort sucks so much it doesn't matter that you have twice as many spells slots per day or two spell lists. Under the current rules, being a mystic theurge means that you aren't doing anything level-appropriate, by definition, and if the class is to be playable, this has to stop.
Prerequisites:
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 5, Knowledge (nature) or Knowledge (religion) 5.
Spells: Ability to cast 1st-level arcane and 1st-level divine spells.
Hit Die: d4.
Class Skills: The mystic theurge's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), and Spellcraft (Int).
Skill Points/Level: 2 + Int Modifier.
BAB: Poor (1/2), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good.
Level, Abilities:
1 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
2 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
3 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
4 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
5 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
6 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
7 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
8 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
9 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
10 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
11 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
12 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
13 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
14 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
15 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
16 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
17 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
18 +1 arcane spellcasting level, +1 divine spellcasting level
All of the following are class features of the mystic theurge prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Mystic theurges gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Spellcasting: Every level, a mystic theurge casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if she had also gained a level in both an arcane and a divine spellcasting class she had previous to gaining that level.
Balance Analysis
This is, in fact, the only version of the basic mystic theurge that can exist. If it lost any more casting, either arcane or divine, taking Leadership would dominate it. Likewise, it has to lose at least this much casting to have both arcane and divine casting to advance. The only possible modifications involve introducing other class features. If it isn't balanced, that means the concept is screwed.
So, is it balanced? The basic trade-off is that it's a level behind in spells one-half the time, both arcane and divine, but gets two spell lists and sets of slots. There's also the opportunity cost of having given up any other PrCs that advance casting and have class features worth noticing. Those things strike me as a pretty even trade, since having more spells doesn't grant more actions to cast them with. Again, play-testing would be needed to be sure.
Concept PrCs
Dragon Disciple
"My grandmother was a dragon, and I bet you'd taste good with ketchup."
Prerequisites:
Race: Any nondragon.
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 8.
Feats: Dragon Descendant.
Languages: Draconic.
Hit Die: d12.
The dragon disciple's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), and Use Magic Device (Cha).
A dragon disciple also gains additional class skills based on the type of their draconic progenitor:
Black: Hide (Dex), Move Silently (Dex), and Swim (Str).
Blue: Bluff (Cha), Hide (Dex), and Spellcraft (Int).
Brass: Bluff (Cha), Gather Information (Cha), and Survival (Wis).
Bronze: Disguise (Cha), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Copper: Bluff (Cha), Hide (Dex), and Jump (Str).
Gold: Disguise (Cha), Heal (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Green: Bluff (Cha), Hide (Dex), and Move Silently (Dex).
Red: Appraise (Int), Bluff (Cha), and Jump (Str).
Silver: Bluff (Cha), Disguise (Cha), and Jump (Str).
White: Hide (Dex), Move Silently (Dex), and Swim (Str).
Skill Points/Level: 6 + Int Modifier.
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Good; Will: Good.
Level, Abilities:
1 Bonus feat, draconic scales, draconic strength, draconic toughness, dragon blood
2 Draconic weapons, +1 sorcerer spellcasting level
3 Alternate form, size increase
4 Bonus feat, draconic wings
5 Draconic movement, +1 sorcerer spellcasting level
6 Frightful presence, improved draconic toughness
7 Bonus feat, tail slap
8 Draconic powers, +1 sorcerer spellcasting level
9 Draconic immortality, size increase
10 Bonus feat, dragon form
All of the following are class features of the dragon disciple prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Dragon disciples gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Spells: At 2nd, 5th, and 8th levels, a dragon disciple casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if she had also gained a level in sorcerer.
Bonus Feat: At 1st, 4th, 7th, and 10th levels, a dragon disciple gains a bonus feat chosen from Affine Immunity, Affine Resilience, Draconic Breath, or Draconic Senses. If she already has all four feats, she may instead gain any feat she meets the prerequisites for.
Dragon Blood: Unless a dragon disciple is an outsider, plant, elemental, or undead, her type changes to dragon and she gains the augmented subtype.
Draconic Scales (Ex): A dragon disciple gains a racial natural armor bonus equal to her class level. If she already has a natural armor bonus, that bonus instead increases by her class level. She also gains a +4 enhancement bonus to her natural armor. As she takes more levels in dragon disciple, her skin becomes increasingly scaly and takes on the hue of her draconic ancestor.
Draconic Strength (Ex): A dragon disciple gains a racial bonus to Strength equal to twice her class level. She also gains a +4 enhancement bonus to Strength.
Draconic Toughness (Ex): A dragon disciple gains bonus hit points equal to seven times her class level.
Draconic Weapons (Ex): At 2nd level, a dragon disciple gains a bite as a primary natural weapon and two claws as secondary natural weapons. They deal damage according to the chart below.
Alternate Form (Su): Starting at 3rd level, a dragon disciple can assume any animal or humanoid form of Medium size or smaller as a standard action three times per day. She can remain in her animal or humanoid form until she chooses to assume a new one or return to her natural form.
Size Increase (Ex): At 3rd and 9th levels, a dragon disciple doubles in height, her weight increases eight times, and her size increases one category. If she becomes Large, her reach becomes 10 feet; if she becomes Huge, her reach becomes 15 feet.
Draconic Wings (Ex): At 4th level, a dragon disciple gains wings, giving her a fly speed, maneuverability class, and wing slam attacks as secondary natural weapons with damage according to the chart below.
Draconic Movement (Ex): Beginning at 5th level, a dragon disciple gains increased movement, additional movement modes, or both.
Black: Their land speed increases by 20 feet and they gain a swim speed of 60 feet.
Blue: Their fly speed increases by 30 feet and they gain a burrow speed of 30 feet.
Brass: Their land speed increases by 20 feet and they gain a burrow speed of 30 feet.
Bronze: Their fly speed increases by 30 feet and they gain a swim speed of 60 feet.
Copper: Their fly speed increases by 60 feet.
Gold: Their land speed increases by 20 feet and they gain a swim speed of 60 feet.
Green: Their fly speed increases by 30 feet and they gain a swim speed of 60 feet.
Red: Their fly speed increases by 60 feet.
Silver: Their fly speed increases by 60 feet.
White: Their land speed increases by 20 feet and they gain a burrow speed of 30 feet.
Frightful Presence (Ex): At 6th level, a dragon disciple gains frightful presence. It automatically affects creatures with fewer HD than her character level within a radius of 180 feet whenever she attacks, charges, flies overhead, or casts a spell. A potentially affected creature that succeeds on a Will save (DC 14 + &frac12; her character level + her Cha modifier) remains immune to her frightful presence for 24 hours. On a failure, creatures with 4 or fewer HD become panicked for 4d6 rounds and those with 5 or more HD become shaken for 4d6 rounds. Other dragons ignore her frightful presence.
Improved Draconic Toughness (Ex): Beginning at 6th level, a dragon disciple gains bonus hit points equal to seven times her Con bonus. If her Con bonus changes, the hit points granted by this ability also change.
Tail Slap (Ex): At 7th level, a dragon disciple grows a tail and gains a tail slap as a secondary natural weapons that deals 1&frac12;her Strength bonus plus dice according to the chart below as damage.
Draconic Powers (Sp): Starting at 8th level, a dragon disciple can use some spell-like abilities shared with her draconic ancestor. Her caster level is equal to her character level, and she gets a +4 racial bonus on the save DC.
Black: 3/day&mdash;Charm reptiles; 1/day&mdash;corrupt water, insect plague.
Blue: 3/day&mdash;Create/destroy water; 1/day&mdash;mirage arcana, veil.
Brass: 1/day&mdash;Control weather, control winds, summon djinni.
Bronze: 3/day&mdash;Control water; 1/day&mdash;control weather.
Copper: 1/day&mdash;move earth, transmute rock to mud or mud to rock, wall of stone.
Gold: 3/day&mdash;Detect gems; 1/day&mdash;foresight, geas/quest, luck bonus (only affects the dragon disciple, lasts 1d3+18 hours), sunburst.
Green: 3/day&mdashDominate person; 1/day&mdash;command plants.
Red: 1/day&mdash; Discern location, find the path.
Silver: 1/day&mdash;Control weather, control winds, reverse gravity.
White: 3/day&mdashFreezing fog (as MM white dragon); 1/day&mdash;control weather.
Draconic Immortality (Su): Beginning at 9th level, a dragon disciple becomes immortal. She no longer takes ability score penalties for aging, though bonuses still accrue, and cannot be magically aged; any penalties she may have already incurred, however, remain in place.
Dragon Form (Su): Starting at 10th level, once per day as a standard action, a dragon disciple can assume the form of a true dragon. While in this form, her size increases another category, she gains a +16 bonus to Str, 150 temporary hit points, a +4 bonus to her saves, and a +4 bonus on the save DCs of her dragon disciple spell-like abilities and abilities received from draconic Affinity feats. While transformed, she can make crush and tail sweep attacks, dealing 4d6 and 2d6 plus 1&frac12; times her Strength modifier damage. She may remain in dragon form for up to an hour, and return to her normal form at any time with a standard action.
Dragon disciple's size, bite damage, claw damage, wing damage, tail
damage, fly speed, maneuverability class
Small, 1d6, 1d4, 1d3, 1d4, 60 ft., good
Medium, 1d8, 1d6, 1d4, 1d6, 90 ft., average
Large, 2d6, 1d8, 1d6, 1d8, 90 ft., average
Huge, 2d8, 2d6, 1d8, 2d6, 90 ft., average
Balance Analysis
My intent with this version of the dragon disciple is to hand out benefits that make giving up a significant amount of spellcasting a reasonable choice. Not surprisingly, these benefits end up looking big: I chose the numbers by approximating what a CR 15 dragon would have, then interpolating between the character and the dragon. Dragons are underCRed, but less so at high levels, and their abilities are less powerful in the hands of PCs: they can't make strafing runs unless the rest of the party can keep up; monsters usually have higher hit dice and hit points, so frightful presence and breath weapons are less useful; and so on. A dragon disciple has more flexibility than a dragon because of equipment, but dragons also get some advantages dragon disciples don't.
Let's look at the dragon disciple's same game test, with a sorcerer 5/dragon disciple 5.
A hall of magical runes: You have detect magic, but you just got 4th-level spells this level, so there's a chance you won't have dimension door to bypass them all. I'll call this a likely win.
A fire giant: You can still cast grease, and with spells or dragon breath take it down from range. Sure win.
A young blue dragon: Your stats are comparable to the dragon's, and you have better casting. You probably win, but there's a chance it can kite you to death with better movement or out-damage you in melee. Likely win.
A bebilith: You have Spot and a fair amount of skill points from dragon disciple, so there's a good chance you spot it, and between casting and possibly dragon breath, you can take it at range. If you don't see it, though, the Con poison and melee damage probably get you. Likely win.
A vrock: Between good saves and SR, with your low caster level and low level spells, you won't have much chance of taking it at range. It has no ranged attacks so has to melee, and you have better melee stats, but it has other special abilities and can summon. If it summons, you probably lose, and if it doesn't, you probably win. I'll call this a toss-up.
A tag-team of mindflayers: You have a good Will save, so you probably save against mind blast and then hit them with dragon breath or shred them with claws. If you don't save, though, they eat your brain. Likely win.
An evil necromancer: In melee, you can probably rip them to shreds before you die, with a chance of horrible death from a save-or-die. At range, they have better casting than you do, so you probably lose. Given the necromancer's advantages in setting up for combat, I think the necromancer has the edge, making this a likely loss.
6 trolls: Two or three fireballs or breaths and they're dead. Sure win.
A horde of shadows: You can probably kill shadows with fireballs or dragon breath and you have enough Str to soak some damage, but there's a good chance you'll get overwhelmed.
Sure wins: 2
Likely wins: 4
Toss-up: 1
Likely losses: 2
This is a little too good, as usual, but is about what a well-built and well-played primary caster can achieve.
Rage Mage
"Get your castle out of my way or I'll get it out of my way!"
The rage mage published in Complete Warrior is neither interesting nor playable. It's designed as a multiclass patch PrC for a barbarian/arcane caster, but it ends up having inadequate casting and poor melee stats; though as a sad commentary on full-BAB classes in WotC material, a rage mage with wraithstrike and heroics is still probably a better character than a straight barbarian anything. (I'm sure the alliteration involved in "rage mage" also played a role in its existence.) Meanwhile, the actual mechanics manage to be both unnecessarily complex and confusing: why does there need to be a difference between spell rage and normal rage, for instance?
D&D sets up magic and anger as opposites by banning raging characters from casting spells and activating magic items, but there's no reason it has be so. In many stories, anger instead serves as a catalyst for magic, and thus in my rewrite of the rage mage I make rage help spellcasting.
Prerequisites:
Feats: Still Spell.
Skills: Concentration 5 ranks.
Spells: Ability to cast 1st-level spells.
Special: Ability to rage.
Hit Die: d8.
Class Skills: The rage mage's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (arcana) (Int), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Skill Points/Level: 2 + Int Modifier.
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Good; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good.
Level, Abilities:
1 Angry magic, fast healing 1, somatic skill, +1 arcane spellcasting level
2 Rage dice +1d6, combat movement +5', +1 arcane spellcasting level
3 Enlarged spells, fast healing 5, +1 arcane spellcasting level
4 Rage dice +2d6, combat movement +10', +1 arcane spellcasting level
5 Destroy magic, +1 arcane spellcasting level
6 Widened spells, +1 arcane spellcasting level
7 Rage dice +3d6, combat movement +15', +1 arcane spellcasting level
8 Fast healing 10, stilled casting, +1 arcane spellcasting level
9 Empowered spells, +1 arcane spellcasting level
10 Rage dice +4d6, combat movement +20', +1 arcane spellcasting level
11 Angrier magic, +1 arcane spellcasting level
12 Heightened spells, +1 arcane spellcasting level
13 Rage dice +5d6, combat movement +25', fast healing 15, +1 arcane spellcasting level
14 Breach immunity, +1 arcane spellcasting level
15 Maximized spells, +1 arcane spellcasting level
16 Rage dice +6d6, combat movement +30', +1 arcane spellcasting level
17 Annihilate magic, +1 arcane spellcasting level
18 Fast healing 20, quickened spells, +1 arcane spellcasting level
All of the following are class features of the rage mage prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Rage mages gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Spellcasting: Every level, a rage mage casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if he had also gained a level in a spellcasting class he had previous to gaining that level.
Angry Magic (Ex): A rage mage can attack with magic while raging. He can cast any spell that directly affects enemies, e.g., by causing damage or a debilitating effect, but not spells to help himself or his allies, or indirect combat spells such as glamers or most walls. He can't cast defensively while raging, but doesn't need to make Concentration checks to avoid losing a spell if he takes damage while casting. He gains a +3 bonus to penetrate spell resistance and a +2 bonus to his save DCs while raging. He may enter a rage as an immediate action while casting an appropriate spell, as well as entering one after taking damage or hitting an enemy in melee, and his rage lasts until he's neither struck an enemy nor taken damage from an enemy nor cast a spell on an enemy for three consecutive rounds.
Levels in rage mage stack with barbarian levels for determining a character's damage reduction.
[The core barbarian is at best a two-level class, so I designed this class around the RoW barbarian. If you're using the core barbarian for some unfathomable reason, the rage mage should get +1 rage/day at 2nd, 7th, 13th, and 18th levels, +1/&mdash; damage reduction at 4th, 10th, and 16th levels, tireless rage at 13th level, and greater rage at 18th level.]
Fast Healing (Ex): A rage mage gains fast healing 1; a 3rd-level or higher rage mage gains fast healing 5, an 8th-level or higher rage mage gains fast healing 10, a 13th-level rage mage gains fast healing 15, and an 18th-level rage mage gains fast healing 20.
Somatic Skill (Ex): A rage mage has mastered using somatic components in armor and does not suffer arcane spell failure with any armor or shield he's proficient with.
Enlarged Spells: Starting at 3rd level, while he's raging, all of a rage mage's short-, medium-, and long-range spells have their ranges doubled, as if he had applied the Enlarge Spell metamagic feat to them. This does not change their level or casting time. If he also has the Enlarge Spell metamagic feat, he can apply it to triple their durations.
Destroy Magic (Su): Beginning at 5th level, while he's raging, any time a spell or magic item would protect one of the rage mage's targets from one of his spells, the spell or magic item is subject to targeted dispel as if he'd cast it. If, while raging, he attacks in melee a creature benefiting from a spell that increases its AC, gives him a miss chance, or reduces the damage it takes, the spell is subject to a targeted dispel as if he'd cast it. He gains a +3 bonus on dispel checks while raging, or +6 if he's an 11th-level or higher rage mage.
Widened Spells: Starting at 6th level, while he's raging, all of a rage mage's burst-, emanation-, line-, and spread-shaped spells have their areas doubled, as if he had applied the Widen Spell metamagic feat to them. This does not change their level or casting time. If he also has the Widen Spell metamagic feat, he can apply it to triple their areas.
Stilled Casting (Ex): Starting at 8th level, all of a rage mage's spells are stilled, as if he had applied the Still Spell metamagic feat to them. This does not change their level or casting time.
Angrier Magic (Ex): Beginning at 9th level, a rage mage gains a +6 bonus to penetrate spell resistance and a +4 bonus to save DCs while raging.
Empowered Spells: Starting at 11th level, while he's raging, all of a rage mage's spells have their variable numeric effects increased by one-half, as if he had applied the Empower Spell metamagic feat to them. This does not change their level or casting time. If he also has the Empower Spell metamagic feat, he can apply it to double their variable numeric effects.
Heightened Spells: Beginning at 12th level, while he's raging, all of a rage mage's spells count as the highest spell level he can cast, as if he'd applied the Heighten Spell metamagic feat to them. This does not change their level or casting time.
Breach Immunity (Su): Starting at 14th level, while he's raging, his spells can affect targets normally immune to them. His targets receive a save at the same DC as usual for the spell, based on the spell's school: Will if the spell is from abjuration, divination, enchantment, illusion, or doesn't have a school; Fortitude if the spell is from conjuration, evocation, necromancy, or transmutation. If they succeed on the save, they remain immune to the spell's effects, as usual, but if they fail, they suffer the normal effects of the spell, and may have to make more saving throws etc. as normal. (Note that some effects may still not work, like damaging a nonability.)
Maximized Spells: Beginning at 15th level, while he's raging, all of a rage mage's spells have their variable numeric effects are maximized, as if he had applied the Maximize Spell metamagic feat to them. This does not change their level or casting time.
Annihilate Magic (Su): Starting at 17th level, when his destroy magic ability activates, instead of a targeted dispel a targeted version of Mordenkainen's disjunction hits the magic item or spell, with the usual effects: an item must make a Will save or turn into a normal item, and a spell effect ends automatically as if dispelled.
Quickened Spells: Beginning at 18th level, while he's raging, a rage mage can cast a spell with a casting time of one full round or less as a swift action. This does not change its level or casting time.
Design Notes
It's not really possible to write a simple class based on any of the core casters: you either have to allow the complexity of spell selection or the class is unplayably weak. This is my best attempt at making a PrC that a caster can take and then use simple strategies, while still remaining competitive. In most circumstances, a rage mage can pick any random attack spell, cast it, and be making a plausible contribution to combat. They also gain enough rage dice and combat movement to plausibly fight in melee. What they don't get are all the defensive abilities the barbarian does; of course, they can still use defensive spells before starting to rage, use utility spells out of combat, and they have, e.g., better saves from multiclassing. In general, they aren't quite as straightforwardly powerful in their combat stats as a barbarian, but they can throw spells at range, which makes up for a lot of sins.
Rage Mage (Take Two)
"Sorry I slaughtered our army&mdash;I guess I kind of lost it there for awhile."
This version of the rage mage is a different mechanical take on the same concept. Instead of being a hybrid of barbarian and caster, it's a way for an arcane caster to act like a meleer.
Prerequisites:
Spells: Ability to cast tenser's transformation.
Hit Die: d4.
Class Skills: The rage mage's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Skill Points/Level: 2 + Int Modifier.
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Poor; Will: Good.
Level, Abilities:
1 Easy transformation, enhanced transformation, +1 arcane spellcasting level
2 , +1 arcane spellcasting level
3 , +1 arcane spellcasting level
4 , +1 arcane spellcasting level
5 , +1 arcane spellcasting level
Easy Transformation: A rage mage can cast Tenser's transformation without any material, somatic, or verbal components.
Enhanced Transformation: Instead of the normal bonuses, when a rage mage casts Tenser's transformation, she receives a +6 enhancement bonus to Strength and Dexterity; a +8 bonus to natural armor; four temporary hit points per character level; proficiency with all simple and martial weapons; and her base attack bonus becomes equal to her character level.
Last edited by Iaimeki on Sun Apr 27, 2008 5:38 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Iaimeki
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Post by Iaimeki » Fri Apr 25, 2008 10:27 pm

NPC Equipment
Wealth by Level Sucks
Let's be upfront about this: the wealth-by-level system doesn't work. It's broken forwards, backwards, sideways, and a few other directions no one's given a name to. Consider some of the ways:

- Infinite Money Loops. These exist in many different levels and forms, from balor-mining to iterated walls of iron to simply exploiting price differentials in raw materials and finished goods.
- Farming. This ranges from literal farming to various other money-making schemes, but the basic idea is that if the PCs can arrange to have free time on their hands, they can gain money, often ridiculous amounts of money, without gaining levels or even roleplaying. ("Ok, what would you like to do?" "We're going to go off for two hundred years and farm, because we're all elves, then purchase magical gear with the proceeds." "Ok then.")
- XP Manipulations. These range from minor manipulations, such as riding a level behind the rest of the party and putting the extra XP gained into crafted items, to major ones, such as using a difference engine with artificer to avoid having to spend any XP on items at all.
- Stealing the Shirts Off Enemies' Backs. Like PCs, many classed NPCs belonging to low CR races need equipment to perform at their rated CRs. When PCs kill these NPCs, though, they get their equipment, and too many of these result in the PCs having far more items than they should according to wealth-by-level.
- Sunders, Disarms, and Captures. Sundering weapons is actually really easy, and against an opponent reliant on a weapon to do damage, often quite devastating; it makes even more sense when a henchmen executes to deprive a PC of it before the fight with the BBEG. Disarming small items is also easy, to the point of stupidity if you're using the core rules rather than RoW, and so grabbing things and running away is a great tactic not only for thieves, but for weakening opponents while strengthening oneself. Finally, in D&D being captured at higher levels is literally a fate worse than death: losing all one's equipment is considerably more expensive, in gold and equivalent experience, than dying and being raised, and some characters can't fight opponents even near their CR without that equipment.

Maybe it's possible to balance systems where PCs acquire money and experience separately (e.g., Shadowrun's karma and nuyen), but D&D is not such a system: casters often don't need any equipment at all to do level-appropriate things, while noncasters can't do level-appropriate things at all without equipment. (Using the core noncasters, this is almost an absolute truth, but it's less true for Tome series noncasters.)
Fixing the entirety of these problems is beyond the scope of this short piece, so again, I'll focus on cheap hacks to make a more manageable section of the game, NPCs, work better.
NPC Wealth by Level Sucks More
In any event, just like PCs, NPCs need basic numeric bonuses to compete as challenges of their supposed level/CR. While they don't have much trouble with this at low levels, by higher levels they have serious trouble purchasing the basics with NPC wealth at higher levels. This is particularly true for noncasters, who can't afford the essential non-numeric abilities like flying on PC wealth, but meeting the essentials even with casters requires crafting and buffs, introducing much more complexity into character creation. Thus, I'm going to use PC wealth to estimate when NPCs should have certain numeric bonuses, to give them a fighting chance.
Weapon and armor bonuses in the following table are enhancement bonuses to equipment; specific equipment varies by class and character, and armor applies to both body armor and shields. Save bonuses are resistance.

Code: Select all

    Lvl  Weapon  AC                                            Saves
                        Enhancement Natural Deflection
    1st
    2nd
    3rd
    4th               +1                                            +1
    5th  +1
    6th                                   +1      +1              +2
    7th
    8th               +2
    9th  +2                                                         +3
    10th             +3
    11th                                            +2              +4
    12th +3                             +2
    13th             +4                                             +5
    14th +4        +5
    15th +5                             +3      +3
    16th                                 +4      +4
    17th                                 +5      +5
    18th
    19th
    20th

What's the source of these bonuses? There are essentially three choices.
Option 1: NPCs Have Equipment Like PCs
In this, the standard approach, every NPC comes equipped with certain standard items appropriate for their level: magic weapons and armor, cloak or vest of resistance, ring of protection, amulet of natural armor, and ability-boosting items. The big disadvantage with this is that when the PCs kill the NPCs, they get to loot all these items, and then sell them (or retain essence them) to turn them into a pile of more useful items. (The wish economy limits the benefit to high-level characters without retain essence or similar abilities who strip equipment off mooks, but by the time the PCs participate in the wish economy, their NPC enemies must have wish-economy-quality gear or they won't threaten the PCs.)
Option 2: NPCs are Special
Rather than having equipment that gives these bonuses, NPCs just get them. Mechanically, they can be class features of the NPC classes, special spells permanencied on NPCs, or just arbitrary abilities. The big disadvantage of this approach is that it creates a blatant and obvious distinction between PCs and NPCs and raises issues if an NPC becomes a PC or vice versa. (Players might wonder how NPCs with nonmagical equipment, which they strip off the bodies after they kill the NPCs, can compete with the PCs.)
Option 3: Everyone Gets Basic Numeric Bonuses
This requires a more significant overhaul of the game than either of the previous options. As a rough draft, it's possible to use the above table for NPCs and PCs. However, this frees up a lot of PC cash for other items, which is a good thing for noncasters, since in most cases they need the help, but may unbalance casters, because they can use spells to cover essential abilities, then dump all their cash into powerful caster-improvement items like beads of karma and rods of metamagic.
NPC Abilities
Ability scores are a bad idea. To get from a raw ability score to the derived numbers used in combat requires two separate steps, which doesn't sound like much, but is annoying to do for lots of NPCs and takes too long in combat. Unfortunately, it's not possible to eliminate ability scores without revamping the system altogether, so instead I'm going to create a simplified system for handling NPC ability scores.
NPCs have three kinds of abillities, primary, secondary, and tertiary, according to their class. Each NPC class has one primary ability, two secondary abilities, and three tertiary abilities, listed in their entries. The chart below lists scores and bonuses (or penalties), according to the kind and the NPC's level; this incorporates all normal sources of ability bonuses, including starting stats, level-based bonuses, enhancement bonuses from equipment, and inherent bonuses from magic. (Note that I have not assumed the wish economy, but rather used the wealth-by-level guidelines to estimate what stats NPCs ought to have. The wish economy has serious problems and destroys the CR tables once it comes into play, so the magic item system and D&D's economic model requires an overhaul.) The combat statistics given in the NPC class tables themselves already incorporate these values, so you shouldn't need to look these up unless you need to know an ability bonus for an unusual check, to evaluate the effects of ability damage, or something similar.

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    Level        Ability Score                  Ability Bonus
               Primary Secondary Tertiary Primary Secondary Tertiary
    1st-5th      16    14            10         +3        +2            +0
    6th-7th      18    14            10         +4        +2            +0
    8th-11th    20    16            10         +5        +3            +0
    12th-13th  22    16            10         +6        +3            +0
    14th-15th  24    18            12         +7        +4            +1
    16th-17th  28    20            12         +9        +5            +1
    18th-19th  30    20            12         +10      +5            +1
    20th         32    20            12         +11      +5            +1

NPC Skills
One of the few worthwhile things from Unearthed Arcana is the [COUNTURL=http://http://www.d20srd.org/srd/varian ... tedChoices]Maximum ranks, limited choices[/COUNTURL] skill system: while not suitable for PCs, it works well for NPCs. I'm going to use this system for the NPC classes and pre-pick the class skills they have; multiclassed NPCs, if anyone is so crazy as to want such a thing, use the multiclassing rules as normal.
Customizing NPCs
NPC Races
In my campaigns, and other campaigns I've played in and observed, the default race is human. Conveniently, human NPCs are easy to throw together: one only need select a feat and a skill. While all of the NPC classes have a simplified set of bonuses that replace the normal feats characters get from levels, I suggest that instead of using those bonuses for the human extra feat, one should select a Combat [or fighter, for those not using RoW rules], Skill, or metamagic feat. The reasons for this are two-fold: first, good feat choice minimizes required numerical recalculation, and second, having one feat gives each NPC some individuality. I've included with each NPC class some suggested feats and skills for the human extra feat and skill points.
Unfortunately, there's no way to avoid some recalculation when using other races, since most D&D races package substantive numerical bonuses with nonnumerical and flavor abilities. I've tried to simplify the process of recalculation as much as possible, but the need for it is irremovable.
Since most races don't get selectable abilities like humans, and I've tried to reduce the number of selectable abilities for the classes, this method creates a problem: all NPCs of the same race, class, and level can be identical. If I wanted more flavor for an NPC, I'd probably remove the numerical bonuses from the 1st-level feat and give them abilities from an actual feat instead.
Customizing Equipment
I designed the following NPC classes so that it's easy to add weapons to them: each class gives a damage bonus to which one adds the weapon dice. Other weapon abilities, like reach and threat range, don't require recalculation, so are easy to handle. Meanwhile, armor under the standard rules is boring, because there's an obvious right choice. RoW armors are more interesting, but use different rules, so converting isn't a simple process.
Weapons and armor are the most salient features for most characters, since they're visible and offer cues to a character's combat abilities. I've already covered the basic equipment that offers numerical bonuses. Generally, other NPC items should add abilities rather than bonuses: e.g., for an underwater combat, the NPCs might need helms of underwater action to compete with PCs who have similar items, spells, or abilities.
Guard
"Guards! Seize them!"
Guards are found anywhere there's something to protect, and their charges range from treasure vaults to the king's person to the lich's phylactery. As usual, level represents a guard's power: the king's bodyguards may all be 10th level and perfectly capable of beating down a 5th-level party single-handedly, while the same party might walk all over the local thug's 1st-level mooks.
[a]Class Abilities:[/b] Primary: Strength, Secondary: Dexterity and Constitution.
Class Skills: Balance, Listen, Sense Motive, Spot.
Suggested Bonus Skill for Humans: Escape Artist or Tumble.
Feats: Guards gain a +1 bonus to attack, +1 dodge bonus to AC, +1 bonus to all saves, +2 damage with weapons, +1 bonus to initiative, and +1 HP per HD instead of a feat.
Equipment: The statistics below assume that guards of 3rd-level or lower are equipped with breastplates, those of 4th-level to 7th-level with full plate, and those of 8th-level or higher with mithral full plate. (ACPs are taken into account for Balance.) These are clearly optimal using the basic armor rules.
Since Frank and K neglected to give us cost guidelines for the RoW armors, it's impossible to know when they should be available, and because BAB modifies the ACP and maximum Dex bonus of the armor, it's hard to write out a simple conversation table.
Guards fight with weapon and shield or a bow. Guards always use heavy steel shields, upgrading to heavy mithral shields at 8th level. Converting to RoW shields is simple, since it only requires the addition of the difference in AC and the subtraction of the difference in the armor check penalty.
Base Attack Bonus: Good.
The following table lists by level, in the following order, a guard's hit points, melee attack bonus, ranged attack bonus, damage bonus (with one-handed melee weapons and bows), normal AC, touch AC, AC against incorporeal attacks, extra AC from dodge bonuses and Dex (if a guard loses their Dex bonus to AC for some reason, subtract this value from the normal AC against that attack), saves, initiative bonus, number of attacks of opportunity a round, the DC for their halt movement and dazing blow abilities, their Dex-based skill checks with armor-check penalty included, and their Wis-based skill checks with the Halt! Who goes there? bonus included.

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    Lvl  HP   Atk      Dmg  AC              Saves          Init  AoOs  DC  Skills
              M   R            Tch Inc Ddg  Fort Ref  Will                 Dex  Wis
    1    15   +5  +4   +5   20 13  13  +3   +5   +5   +3   +3    3     13  +0   +5
    2    24   +6  +5   +5   20 13  13  +3   +6   +6   +4   +3    3     14  +1   +7
    3    37   +9  +8   +8   21 14  14  +4   +7   +7   +5   +4    3     14  +2   +9
    4    47   +10 +9   +8   24 14  14  +4   +8   +8   +6   +4    3     15  +1   +11
    5    58   +11 +10  +8   26 14  14  +3   +8   +8   +6   +4    3     15  +2   +13
    6    74   +15 +13  +12  29 16  16  +4   +10  +10  +8   +5    4     17  +3   +15
    7    86   +16 +14  +12  29 16  16  +4   +10  +10  +8   +5    4     17  +4   +17
    8    105  +18 +16  +18  33 17  17  +6   +12  +12  +9   +6    5     19  +11  +19
    9    127  +21 +19  +21  35 18  18  +7   +13  +13  +10  +7    5     19  +12  +21
    10   140  +23 +21  +21  38 19  19  +8   +14  +15  +11  +7    5     20  +13  +23
    11   154  +24 +22  +21  40 20  20  +8   +14  +15  +11  +7    6     20  +14  +25
    12   179  +28 +25  +26  41 21  21  +9   +16  +17  +13  +8    6     22  +15  +27
    13   194  +29 +26  +26  44 21  21  +9   +16  +17  +13  +8    6     22  +16  +29
    14   222  +31 +28  +28  46 29  22  +9   +18  +19  +14  +9    7     24  +18  +32
    15   253  +34 +31  +31  48 31  24  +10  +19  +20  +15  +10   7     24  +19  +34
    16   285  +37 +33  +35  49 32  25  +10  +21  +22  +16  +11   9     27  +21  +36
    17   303  +38 +34  +35  50 33  45  +10  +21  +22  +16  +11   9     27  +22  +38
    18   338  +41 +36  +49  51 34  46  +11  +23  +24  +18  +12   9     29  +23  +40
    19   357  +42 +37  +49  51 34  46  +11  +23  +24  +18  +12   9     29  +24  +42
    20   375  +44 +38  +52  51 34  46  +11  +24  +25  +19  +12   9     31  +25  +44

Level, Abilities:
1 Halt! Who goes there?, quick reactions
2 Damage reduction, uncanny dodge
3 Halt movement, magic weapons
4 Maneuver mastery +4, spell resistance
5 Active assault, improved uncanny dodge
6 Block charge, threaten spellcasters
7 Dazing blow, energy resistance
8 Ignore damage reduction, strong blows
9 Flying 40' (good), sacrifice
10 Ghost sight, hasted
11 Dimension jump, increased reach
12 Ignore concealment and cover, blindsense 120'
13 Freedom of movement, maneuver mastery +8
14 Block touch, death and energy drain immunity
15 Mind-affecting immunity, slow movement
16 Fortification, rapid attacks
17 Ghost slayer, ignore debilitation
18 Stronger blows, true sight
19 Status immunities, divination immunity
20 Sure blow, sure save
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Guards are proficient with all simple and martial weapons, as well as any exotic weapons peculiar to their race; light, medium, and heavy armor; and shields and great shields [or tower shields, for those not using RoW].
Halt! Who Goes There? (Ex): Guards gain a competence bonus equal to their class level on Listen, Sense Motive, and Spot checks, and may always take 10 with those skills.
Quick Reactions (Ex): Guards may make extra attacks of opportunity per round equal to their Dex bonuses, and they may make attacks of opportunity while flat-footed.
Damage Reduction (Ex): Guards of 2nd-level or higher gain damage reduction equal to their class level divided by half. Nothing penetrates this damage reduction.
Uncanny Dodge (Ex): A guard of 2nd-level or higher retains her Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) even if she's flat-footed or struck by an invisible attacker. However, she still loses her Dexterity bonus to AC if immobilized. If she already has uncanny dodge from a different class, she automatically gains improved uncanny dodge instead.
Halt Movement (Ex): A guard of 3rd-level or higher who receives an attack of opportunity from an opponent moving out of her threatened area can forgo the attack of opportunity to attempt to stop her opponent's movement in that square. The opponent's movement stops there, as if they'd used up their movement for the turn, if they fail a Reflex save (DC equal to 10 + &frac12; the guard's character level + her Strength modifier).
Magic Weapons (Su): Guards of 3rd-level or higher always have level-appropriate bonuses on their weapons, giving them a +1 enhancement bonus per three class levels with any weapon they wield (already figured into the statistics above).
Maneuver Mastery (Ex): Guards of 4th-level or higher gain a +4 competence bonus on trip, disarm, sunder, bull-rush, and grapple checks. Starting at 13th level, this bonus improves to +8.
Spell Resistance (Ex): Guards of 4th-level or higher have spell resistance equal to their class level + their character level (thus twice their character level, for a single-classed guard).
Active Assault (Ex): Guards of 5th-level or higher may take a 5 foot step as an immediate action, in addition to any other movement they take during their turn, even another 5 foot step.
Improved Uncanny Dodge (Ex): Guards of 5th-level or higher can't be flanked except by characters with at least four levels more in classes that grant sneak attack than a guard has in classes that give uncanny dodge.
Block Charge (Ex): Charging a guard of 6th-level or higher provokes an attack of opportunity from that guard; this attack is considered a "readied attack" if it matters for purposes like setting against a charge.
Threaten Spellcasters (Ex): Creatures may not cast defensively in the threat ranges of guards of 6th-level or higher.
Dazing Blow (Ex): The first melee attack in a round from a guard of 7th-level or higher dazes opponents who fail a Fortitude save (DC 10 + &frac12; her character level + her Strength modifier).
Energy Resistance (Ex): Guards of 7th-level or higher have energy resistance equal to their character level plus 10 to acid, cold, electricity, fire, negative energy, and sonic damage.
Ignore Damage Reduction (Ex): The weapons of guards of 8th-level or higher bypass all material- and alignment-based damage reduction.
Strong Blows (Ex): Guards of 8th-level or higher deal twice their Strength bonus in damage while wielding one-handed melee weapons or using bows. Starting at 18th level, guards deal thrice their Strength bonus in damage.
Sacrifice (Ex): As an immediate action, a guard of 9th-level or higher may make herself the target of an attack or targeted effect that targets any creature within her reach.
Flying (Su): Guards of 9th-level or higher can fly at 40 feet per round (60 feet, if for some reason they aren't wearing their
Ghost Sight (Su): Guards of 10th-level or higher can see invisible and ethereal creatures.
Hasted (Su): Guards of 10th-level or higher are always under the effects of haste (the bonuses to attacks, AC, and Reflex saves already figured into the statistics above).
Dimension Jump (Su): As a swift action, a guard of 11th-level or higher may teleport herself and anything she's physically carrying 60 feet in any direction.
Increased Reach (Ex): Guards of 11th-level or higher gain 5 feet of reach with their weapons, and if already using a reach weapon, may strike adjacent targets with it.
Ignore Cover and Concealment (Ex): Guards of 12th-level or higher ignore miss chances and other effects from any cover or concealment less than total.
Blindsense (Ex): Guards of 12th-level or higher have blindsense to 120 feet.
Freedom of Movement (Su): Guards of 13th-level or higher act as if always under the effects of freedom of movement.
Block Touch (Ex): A guard of 14th-level or higher may apply their shield bonus to their touch AC.
Death Immunity (Su): Guards of 14th-level or higher are immune to death effects and negative levels.
Mind-Affecting Immunity (Su): Guards of 15th-level or higher are immune to mind-affecting effects.
Slow Movement (Ex): With a swift action, a guard of 15th-level or higher can make all 5-foot squares adjacent to themselves into difficult ground.
Fortification (Ex): Guards of 16th-level or higher are immune to critical hits.
Rapid Attacks (Ex): Guards of 16th-level or higher can make a full attack as a standard action.
Ghost Warrior (Su): The weapons and armor of guards of 17th-level or higher act as if they have the ghost touch property.
Ignore Debilitation (Ex): As a swift action, a guard of 17th-level or higher can ignore one spell or status effect on her for one round.
True Sight (Su): Guards of 18th-level or higher see as if always under the effects of true seeing.
Divination Immunity (Su): Divinations cast on or about guards of 19th-level or higher fail to yield any information about them.
Status Immunities (Ex): Guards of 19th-level or higher are immune to ability damage and drain, blindness, dazing, deafness, fatigue and exhaustion, nauseation, paralysis, sickening, staggering, stunning, and any transmutation they are unwilling to accept.
Sure Blow (Ex): As an immediate action, a guard of 20th-level or higher may take 20 on a single attack roll.
Sure Save (Ex): As an immediate action, a guard of 20th-level or higher may take 20 on a single save.
Priest
"You don't believe me? When I'm done with you, you will be a true believer."
Class Abilities: Primary: Wisdom, Secondary: Strength and Constitution.
Class Skills: Concentration, Spellcraft.
Suggested Bonus Skill for Humans:
Feats: Guards gain a +1 bonus to attack, +1 dodge bonus to AC, +1 bonus to all saves, +2 damage with weapons, +1 bonus to initiative, and +1 HP per HD instead of a feat.
Equipment: The statistics below assume that guards of 3rd-level or lower are equipped with breastplates, those of 4th-level to 7th-level with full plate, and those of 8th-level or higher with mithral full plate. (ACPs are taken into account for Balance.) These are clearly optimal using the basic armor rules.
Since Frank and K neglected to give us cost guidelines for the RoW armors, it's impossible to know when they should be available, and because BAB modifies the ACP and maximum Dex bonus of the armor, it's hard to write out a simple conversation table.
Guards fight with weapon and shield or a bow. Guards always use heavy steel shields, upgrading to heavy mithral shields at 8th level. Converting to RoW shields is simple, since it only requires the addition of the difference in AC and the subtraction of the difference in the armor check penalty.
Base Attack Bonus: Good.
Level, Abilities:
1 Cleric mimic, cure/inflict touch 1d8, devoted insight, remove fear
2 Expanded knowledge
3 Cure/inflict touch 2d8, magic gear, remove paralysis/fatigue/ability penalties
4 Health sense
5 Cure/inflict touch 3d8, remove blindness/curse/deafness/disease
6 Darkness
7 Cure/inflict touch 4d8, neutralize poison, poison immunity, restoration
8 Spell immunity
9 Cure/inflict touch 5d8, tenacious spell-likes, magic circle
10 Hasted
11 Air walk, energy resistance 30, freedom of movement, mass cure/inflict 1d8, greater restoration
12
13 mass cure/inflict 2d8
14
15 Antimagic field, mass cure/inflict 3d8, mind-affecting immunity
16 Fortification, greater spell immunity
17 mass cure/inflict 4d8
18
19 mass cure/inflict 5d8
20
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Priests are proficient with all simple weapons; light, medium, and heavy armor; and shields.
Spells: Priests cast divine spells which are drawn from the priest spell list. Priests automatically know all the spells on the priest spell list for all the spell levels they can cast; essentially, their spell list is the same as their spells known list. Priests can cast any spell they know without preparing it ahead of time.
To cast a priest spell, a priest must have a Wisdom score of 10 + the spell's level. The Difficulty Class of the saving throw against a priest's spells are 10 + the spell's level + their Wis modifier. Priests can cast the same number of spells per day as sorcerers, minus two each day, and gain bonus spells for a high Wisdom (already figured into the spells/day figures above).
Priests' caster levels are equal to their class levels.
0 Level (Orisons): create water, detect magic, detect poison, light, mending, purify food and drink, read magic
1st Level: detect chaos/evil/good/law, entropic shield, magic weapon, obscuring mist, protection from chaos/evil/good/law, sanctuary, summon monster I
2nd Level: align weapon, hold person, make whole, shatter, silence, shield other, summon monster II
3rd Level: bestow curse, create food and water, daylight, dispel magic, invisibility purge, meld into stone, protection from energy, speak with dead, stone shape, summon monster III, wind wall
4th Level: death ward, discern lies, dimensional anchor, dismissal, , , poison, sending, spell immunity?, summon monster IV
5th Level: break enchantment, dispel chaos/evil/good/law, disrupting weapon, greater dispel magic, flame strike, righteous might, slay living, spell resistance, summon monster V, wall of stone
6th Level: antilife shell, banishment, blade barrier, greater dispel magic, find the path, harm, heal, heroes' feast?, summon monster VI, wind walk, word of recall
7th Level: blasphemy, control weather, destruction, dictum, ethereal jaunt, greater scrying, holy word, regenerate, repulsion, summon monster VII, word of chaos
8th Level: cloak of chaos, dimensional lock, discern location, earthquake, holy aura, greater spell immunity, summon monster VIII
9th Level: astral projection, etherealness, gate, mass heal, implosion, miracle, soul bind, summon monster IX
Powers: Each priest has some additional powers related to their divine patron's or ideal's portfolio.
Death: Death priests like killing things and bring them back as undead. They channel negative energy and thus may only be neutral or evil.

- 1st: Once per day, with a melee touch attack, a death priest may roll 1d6 per priest level, and if the total at least equals the creature's current hit points, it dies. This death touch is a death effect and a supernatural ability.
- 5th: Four times their priest level in HD of zombies and skeletons follow a death priest around, in addition to the undead they control with their rebuking ability.
- 9th: Slay living 1/day.
- 13th: Destruction 1/day.
- 17th: Wail of the banshee 1/day.

Good: Good priests season their days of helping the weak and needy with the occasional smiting of evil. They, obviously, must be good, so channel positive energy.

- 1st: Once per day, a good priest can perform a greater turning against undead in place of a normal turning, destroying any undead that would normally be turned.
- 5th:
- 9th: Heal 1/day.
- 13th: Blade barrier 1/day. A special type of antimagic field that does not affect them or their equipment surrounds mage-priests constantly. A good priest may raise or lower this field, or restore it if it's disjoined, as a standard action; this is a spell-like ability.
- 17th: Prismatic sphere 1/day.

Itinerant Priests: Intinerant priests wander around, usually promoting their religion, but sometimes just for kicks.

- 1st: Itinerant priests have a 10-foot enhancement bonus to their land speed. Also, itinerant priests act as if always under the effects of freedom of movement; this effect may be dispelled, but an itinerant priest may restore it as a standard action.
- 5th: Fly 1/day.
- 9th: Teleport 1/day.
- 13th: Greater teleport 1/day.
- 17th: Timestop 1/day.

Mage: Mage-priests follow deities and ideals of magic and share some abilities with wizards.

- 1st: Mage-priests can use spell completion and spell trigger items as if they had a wizard level equal to half their priest level.
- 5th: Clairaudience/clairvoyance 1/day.
- 9th: Mage-priests benefit from arcane sight and see invisibility constantly. This effect may be dispelled, but a priest may restore it as a standard action; this is a spell-like ability.
- 13th: A special type of antimagic field that does not affect them or their equipment surrounds mage-priests constantly. A mage-priest may raise or lower this field, or restore it if it's disjoined, as a standard action. In addition, nine levels of spell turning always protect mage-priests. While turning spells depletes this protection as usual, they may restore it with a standard action, even if it was dispelled. Both abilities are spell-like abilities.
- 17th: Mordenkainen's disjunction 1/day.

Nature:

- 1st: Entangle 1/day.
- 5th: Nature priests can rebuke and command plant creatures as evil clerics can rebuke and command undead. As a consequence, nature priests always have their class level in HD of plant creatures following them around.
- 9th: Wall of thorns 1/day.
- 13th: Antilife shell 1/day.
- 17th: Nature priests have shapechange always active with caster level equal to their priest level + 5. A nature priest may change forms as a swift action, and if their shapechange is dispelled, restore it as a standard action; this effect is a spell-like ability.

War:

- 1st: War priests are proficient with all martial weapons.
- 5th:
- 9th: War priests have DR 10/adamantine.
- 13th:
- 17th:

Blank:

- 1st:
- 5th:
- 9th:
- 13th:
- 17th:

Cleric Mimic (Ex): Priests may use spell completion and spell trigger items as if they had any spell on the cleric list. Their effective cleric levels are equal to their priest levels.
Cure/Inflict Touch (Sp): With a touch, priests may heal or inflict 1d8+their class levels in damage. As usual, curing hurts undead and inflicting heals them. At every odd level before 10th, cure/inflict touch the amount of healing or damage increases by an extra d8. Priests who channel positive energy may use cure touch at will, inflict touch one per day, and a special version of inflict touch that only does 1d8+1 damage at will. Priests who channel negative energy can use inflict touch at will, cure touch once per day, and a special version of cure touch that only heals 1d8+1 damage at will.
Devoted Insight (Ex): Priests may use their Wisdom modifiers in place of Strength or Dexterity for melee or ranged attack rolls, respectively.
Remove Afflictions (Sp): With a touch, priests may remove status ailments, the type dependent on their levels. A priest may usually only remove one type of status effects with each use of this ability.
All priests can remove fear effects, ending them as if their duration expired. Priests of 3rd-level or higher can, in addition, remove paralysis and slowing effects; fatigue and exhaustion; or magical ability penalties and 1d4 points of ability damage. Priests of 5th-level or higher can remove blindness, deafness, diseases, or a curse. Priests of 7th-level or higher can detoxify all poisons; dispel all negative levels and restore one lost level (provided it was lost to level drain); or cure all ability damage and restore all points drained from a single ability score. Priests of 11th-level can restore all lost levels (provided they were lost to level drain); heal all ability damage and drain; or remove insanity, confusion, and similar mental effects.
Expanded Knowledge: While the basic spell list is fine for core priests, priests in campaigns where other casters get noncore spells should have access to them too. At every even level, a priest adds a noncore spell of the highest level they can cast to their spells known (and thus their spell list).
Magic Gear (Su): Priests of 3rd-level or higher always have level-appropriate bonuses on their weapons and armor, giving them a +1 enhancement bonus per three class levels with any weapon they wield and armor or shield they wear (already figured into the statistics above).
Health Sense (Sp): Priests of 4th-level or higher instantly know whether each creature within 30 feet is dead, unharmed, wounded, fragile (alive and wounded with one-tenth or fewer hit points left than its maximum), undead, or neither alive nor dead (such as a construct); and any conditions affecting each creature: disabled, staggered, unconscious, dying, nauseated, panicked, stunned, poisoned, diseased, confused, or the like. This effect may be dispelled, but a priest may restore it as a standard action.
Darkness (Sp): Priests of 6th-level or higher radiate darkness out to 60 feet, granting concealment in that area; as usual for magical darkness, this affects creatures with darkvision too. This ability is the equivalent of a 3rd-level spell; a priest may raise or lower it, or restore it if it's dispelled, as a standard action.
Poison Immunity (Sp): Priests of 7th-level or higher are immune to poisons. This ability may be dispelled, but a priest may restore it as a standard action.
Spell Immunity (Sp): Priests of 8th-level or higher are immune (as if they had unbeatable spell resistance) to a number of spells equal to their class level divided by four plus one; all such spells must be 4th-level or lower, unless a priest is 16th-level or higher, in which case they may be 8th-level or lower. They may change which spells they're immune to as a standard action; this ability may be dispelled, but a priest may restore it as a standard action.
Sample lists of spell immunities by level:
8th: fear, phantasmal killer, scrying
12th: bestow curse, hold person, phantasmal killer, scrying
16th: blasphemy (unless evil, then dimensional lock), greater scrying, maze, polymorph any object, trap the soul
20th: blasphemy (unless evil, then dimensional lock), greater scrying, maze, polymorph any object, trap the soul
Tenacious Spell-Likes (Su): The spell-like abilities of priests of 9th-level or higher have a +5 bonus to DCs to dispel them.
Magic Circle (Sp): Priests of 9th-level or higher radiate a magic circle effect against all alignments they do not have. (Thus, a lawful good priest would have magic circle against evil and chaos, while a neutral priest would have it against all alignments.) This effect may be dispelled, but a priest may restore it as a standard action.
Hasted (Su): Priests of 10th-level or higher are always under the effects of haste (the bonuses to attacks, AC, and Reflex saves already figured into the statistics above).
Air Walk (Sp): Priests of 11th-level or higher move as if always under the effects of air walk. This effect may be dispelled, but a priest may restore it as a standard action.
Freedom of Movement (Sp): Priests of 11th-level or higher act as if always under the effects of freedom of movement. This effect may be dispelled, but a priest may restore it as a standard action.
Energy Resistance (Sp): Priests of 11th-level or higher have energy resistance 30 against acid, cold, electricity, fire, and sonic. This effect may be dispelled, but a priest may restore it as a standard action.
Mass Cure/Inflict (Sp): Priests of 11th-level or higher can heal or inflict 1d8+their class levels in damage on a number of creatures equal to their class level, as long all the targets are within close range and no two of which are more than 30 feet apart. Every odd level above 10th, mass cure/inflict heals or inflicts an extra d8 of damage. Priests who channel positive energy may use mass cure at will and mass inflict touch one per day, while those who channel negative energy can use mass inflict at will and mass cure touch once per day.
Death Immunity (Su): Priests of 12th-level or higher are immune to death and negative energy effects.
]Antimagic Field (Sp): A special type of antimagic field that does not affect them or their equipment surrounds priests of 15th-level or higher constantly. A priest may raise or lower this field, or restore it if it's disjoined, as a standard action.
Mind-Affecting Immunity (Su): Priests of 15th-level or higher are immune to mind-affecting effects.
Fortification (Ex): Priests of 16th-level or higher are immune to critical hits.
True Seeing (Sp): Priests of 16th-level or higher see as if always under the effects of true seeing. This effect may be dispelled, but a priest may restore it as a standard action.
Sage
"Huh, where am I? Who am I? Wait, I remember&mdash;I have the spell you need right here."
Level, Abilities:
1 Scribe Scroll, spells
2
3 Brew Potion, Craft Wondrous Item
4
5 Craft Magic Arms and Armor, Craft Wand
6 Sculpt Spell
7
8
9 Craft Rod
10 Extend Spell
11
12 Craft Staff, Forge Ring
13
14
15 Quicken Spell
16
17
18
19
20
Spells: Sages cast arcane spells which are drawn the cleric, druid, or sorcerer/wizard spell lists; if a spell appears at different levels on these lists, the sage may cast it at the lowest level it appears on any of them. (If there are other full casters in a campaign, sages should gain spells from those lists as well.) Sages automatically know all the spells on their spell list for all the spell levels they can cast; essentially, their spell list is the same as their spells known list. Sages can cast any spell they know without preparing it ahead of time. However, sages take longer to cast their highest-level spells than usual: if a spell's casting time is less than one round and is the highest-level a sage is allowed to cast, its casting time increases to one round.
To cast a sage spell, a sage must have an Intelligence score of 10 + the spell's level. The Difficulty Class of the saving throw against a sage's spells is 10 + the spell's level + their Int modifier. Sages can cast one-half the spells per day available to an unspecialized wizard, and gain bonus spells for a high Intelligence (already figured into the spells/day figures above). (If a wizard can cast one spell of a given level per day, then a sage can cast zero spells of that level before bonus spells for a high Int, but can still cast spells of that level provided they have a high enough Int.)
Sages' caster levels are equal to their class levels.
Last edited by Iaimeki on Sat Apr 26, 2008 4:05 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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Orion
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Post by Orion » Sat Apr 26, 2008 3:49 am

I don't really like your MT -- it seems a little *too* strong at the levels where it's *not* behind a spell level. What if it were designed for a Cleric 2 or Cleric 3? Have cleric spells at the normal levels, wizard spells a spell level behind.
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Koumei
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Post by Koumei » Sat Apr 26, 2008 4:52 am

The Dragon Disciple makes me happy. I'm over the whole "Grandpappy fucked a dragon when they were both drunk." thing, and I love the idea of never again hearing about dragon-on-anything sex (including other dragons. Sure it's natural. Doesn't mean I want to hear about it), but that class is awesome.
I'm just wondering if it's better entered as Sorc 1/Fighty Type 4 (to get the required feat, and a nice payload of HP and BAB) or to go Sorc 5 and have some degree of surprise spellcasting (Sorc up to then is useful, then your class features take over, though it may take a few levels for the "I'm a fighter type!" to kick in. But you could make more use of buffs).
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Bigode
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Post by Bigode » Sat Apr 26, 2008 5:22 am

Damn, I was in fact hoping to see you in the new forum (well, at least I am seeing) ... anyway, it should be interesting, but could you fix at least the weirder formatting? And thanks of course.

> Hans Freyer, s.b.u.h. wrote:A manly, a bold tone prevails in history. He who has the grip has the booty.

> Huston Smith wrote:Life gives us no view of the whole. We see only snatches here and there, (...)

> brotherfrancis75 wrote:Perhaps you imagine that Ayn Rand is our friend? And the Mont Pelerin Society? No, those are but the more subtle versions of the Bolshevik Communist Revolution you imagine you reject. (...) FOX NEWS IS ALSO COMMUNIST!

> LDSChristian wrote:True. I do wonder which is worse: killing so many people like Hitler did or denying Christ 3 times like Peter did.

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JonSetanta
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Post by JonSetanta » Sat Apr 26, 2008 6:29 am

Formatting was unkind.
Very unkind.

> The Adventurer's Almanac wrote: ↑
> Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:25 pm
> Nobody gives a flying fuck about Tordek and Regdar.

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NoDot
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Post by NoDot » Sat Apr 26, 2008 12:20 pm

> Boolean wrote:I don't really like your MT -- it seems a little *too* strong at the levels where it's *not* behind a spell level. What if it were designed for a Cleric 2 or Cleric 3? Have cleric spells at the normal levels, wizard spells a spell level behind.

I think it's Wizard 1/Archivist 1/MT X.
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Iaimeki
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Post by Iaimeki » Sat Apr 26, 2008 4:00 pm

> Boolean wrote:I don't really like your MT -- it seems a little *too* strong at the levels where it's *not* behind a spell level. What if it were designed for a Cleric 2 or Cleric 3? Have cleric spells at the normal levels, wizard spells a spell level behind.

I have this concern too, but if it's a real problem, it's not fixable. Pushing up levels of cleric or wizard doesn't work: at that point it's better to just burn a feat, which is less expensive than taking a PrC for however many levels, and get a cohort that casts spells a level lower *and* has an extra action /hp/equipment/etc. to bring to the party. I tried to mention this in the Balance Analysis section--mystic theurge is not flexible, if this design doesn't work, the concept doesn't work without changing other aspects of the rules.

> Koumei wrote:I'm just wondering if it's better entered as Sorc 1/Fighty Type 4 (to get the required feat, and a nice payload of HP and BAB) or to go Sorc 5 and have some degree of surprise spellcasting (Sorc up to then is useful, then your class features take over, though it may take a few levels for the "I'm a fighter type!" to kick in. But you could make more use of buffs).

Because of the way multiclassing with spellcasters works, it's intended for players to go in as Sorc 5--if you lose spell levels before chances are your spells won't matter at all. On the other hand, in games where wraithstrike say is legal, all bets are off and maybe going in as Sorc 1/Fighter 4 would make sense.

> Bigode wrote:Damn, I was in fact hoping to see you in the new forum (well, at least I am seeing) ... anyway, it should be interesting, but could you fix at least the weirder formatting? And thanks of course.

Unfortunately this board has totally different sizing than bboy did. I went back and fixed the sizing and some of the more egregious off-center issues in the tables--the other formatting idiosyncracies I don't even know how to fix because I don't know why it looks weird in the first place, unfortunately.
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CatharzGodfoot
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Sat Apr 26, 2008 4:44 pm

> Iaimeki wrote:

> > Boolean wrote:I don't really like your MT -- it seems a little *too* strong at the levels where it's *not* behind a spell level. What if it were designed for a Cleric 2 or Cleric 3? Have cleric spells at the normal levels, wizard spells a spell level behind.

> I have this concern too, but if it's a real problem, it's not fixable. Pushing up levels of cleric or wizard doesn't work: at that point it's better to just burn a feat, which is less expensive than taking a PrC for however many levels, and get a cohort that casts spells a level lower *and* has an extra action /hp/equipment/etc. to bring to the party. I tried to mention this in the Balance Analysis section--mystic theurge is not flexible, if this design doesn't work, the concept doesn't work without changing other aspects of the rules.

By biggest problem with Mystic Theurge is that it follows the idea that 'you're getting spellcasting advancement in two classes, that's too many class features already.' That's retarded. Mystic theurges are completely uninteresting as a character that gets dual advancement. Despite their flaws, the Mind Mage and the Arcane Heirophant were at least interesting. The idea of a Mage/Priest is cool because she combines her arcane and divine magic.
At first glance, I don't see any reason for 18-level "prestige classes". At that point it should just be a base class.
I'd shoot for a 10-level PrC. Make the entry requirements as low as 3rd or 4th level, but try to give class abilities that make it worth taking at 10th. A spellcasting feat as a prerequisite & to ease characters in might be a good idea.
Then you can start doing things like 'deity's favored animal as a familiar, or based on alignment (quasit, elemental, lantern, imp, weasel of good, etc)', or 'weapon/staff of the deity', or 'Turn Magic', or 'Arcane Domain Spontaneity', or 'Synergistic Magic'.
Then again, that kind of approach takes a lot more work..
The law in its majestic equality forbids the rich as well as the poor from stealing bread, begging and sleeping under bridges.
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Mount Flamethrower on rear
Drive in reverse
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Iaimeki
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Post by Iaimeki » Sat Apr 26, 2008 5:10 pm

Catharz, your approach is definitely a lot better in general, and I personally don't feel that interested in writing a PrC that's as bland as the mystic theurge. One of my purposes on the bit with hybrid PrCs was pedagogical, though, to show *how* if one wanted to do such a thing, the best way to do it. I think it's fair to argue that eldritch knight, for instance, fills a need--I'm not sure that mystic theurge does, but I'm not sure it doesn't, either.
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Iaimeki
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Post by Iaimeki » Sun Apr 27, 2008 5:39 pm

For some reason it was clipping off the end of hybrid PrCs post and not showing me that in the preview, so there's the rest of the (written) sections on hybrid PrCs.
Elf-Fetish PrCs
Arcane Archer
The arcane archer isn't, strictly speaking, a hybrid, since in itself it's a pure combat class that just requires multiclassing into a casting class as a prerequisite. However, it's close enough so that I want to discuss it in this section.
Back when the 3.0 DMG was released, arcane archer wasn't playable, since it was still a full BAB class which meant it didn't have any abilities anyone cared about. However, it was less unplayable than it is now, because it received two huge nerfs in 3.5: greater magic weapon came into the core and arrow and bow enhancements changed so they no longer stacked with each other. As it stands, a core 3rd-level spell replaces most of the class's features, another spell (arrow storm) duplicates hail of arrows and is available much earlier with less investment, arrow of death isn't even remotely level-appropriate (a DC 20 Fort save at 17th level? Please.), and phase and seeker arrow do far too little damage to be relevant. The only mildly interesting ability is imbue arrow, since it opens up the possibility of firing AMFs at your enemies from miles away, but because of the PrC's prerequisites and the required two levels of lost casting, it's also all but useless.
Prerequisites:
BAB: +3
Feats: Point Blank Shot.
Proficiencies: Proficient with the longbow, the shortbow, or a similar weapon.
Race: Elf or half-elf.
Spells: Ability to cast greater magic weapon and true strike as arcane spells.
Hit Die: d6.
Class Skills: The arcane archer's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Hide (Dex), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).
Skill Points/Level: 2 + Int Modifier.
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Good; Will: Good.
Level, Abilities:
1 Imbue arrow, magic arrows
2 Enhanced arrows, hawkeye, +1 arcane spellcasting level
3 Enduring spells, hunter's mercy, +1 arcane spellcasting level
4 Hunter, +1 arcane spellcasting level
5 True shot, +1 arcane spellcasting level
6 Arrow storm, +1 arcane spellcasting level
7 Prepare arrow, +1 arcane spellcasting level
8 Swift enhancement, +1 arcane spellcasting level
9 Sniper, +1 arcane spellcasting level
10 Martial mage, +1 arcane spellcasting level
All of the following are class features of the arcane archer prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Arcane archers gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.
Spellcasting: Every level except 1st, an arcane archer casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if she had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class she had previous to gaining that level.
Imbue Arrow (Su): An arcane archer can cast an area, touch, ray, targeted, or effect (that affects an area) spell into an arrow as she fires it, with a single standard action. If it's an area or effect spell, it takes effect where the arrow lands, even if the spell could normally only be centered on the caster. If it's a targeted, ray, or touch spell, if the arrow hits its target (with a normal attack roll), the spell affects that target as normal, offering spell resistance and a saving throw or throws as usual. Any spell she imbues into an arrow gets +1 to its saving throw DCs and +2 to penetrate spell resistance.
Magic Arrows (Su): Any arrow an arcane archer fires has an enhancement bonus equal to one-third her character level, to a maximum of +5 before 21st level.
Enhanced Arrows (Su): Starting at 2nd level, any arrow an arcane archer fires gains a special ability or abilities: she selects any ability or combination of abilities from the following list that sum to one-third her highest arcane caster level. She can change which ability her arrows gain as a move-equivalent action; beginning at 8th level, she can change abilities as a swift action.
Example: General Ielenia, an elf wizard 2/arcane archer 8, is leading the elves against a goblin army, so before the armies meet, she selects goblinoidbane and superior seeking for her enhanced arrows ability. However, during the battle she discovers that the goblins have hired some ogre mercenaries led by an ogre mage, so she takes a move-equivalent action to switch her arrows to giantbane and flaming burst.
Ability, Bonus

- Bane, +1
- Flaming, +1
- Freezing, +1
- Ghost Touch, +1
- Magebane [Complete Arcane], +1
- Merciful, +1
- Seeking, +1
- Shocking, +1
- Thundering, +1
- Flaming Burst, +2
- Icy Burst, +2
- Shocking Burst, +2
- Wounding, +2
- Superior Seeking, +2
- Explosive [Complete Warrior], +3
- Phasing, +3
- Brilliant Energy, +4

Superior Seeking: A superior seeking arrow flies unerringly to its target, even going around corners, but the arcane archer must know that an enemy is in a square; the arrow negates any miss chances from concealment or cover. Her attack is rolled as normal.
Phasing: A phasing arrow goes ethereal and only returns to material existence as it's about to strike its target. Thus, it can pass through solid objects and even spells (but not force effects) on the way to its target, though the arcane archer must still target the right square. Her attack is rolled as normal.
Hawkeye: At 2nd level, an archer archer who prepares spells adds hawkeye [Spell Compendium] to her spellbook for free, and may lose a prepared spell to cast it like a cleric casting a cure spell. An arcane archer who casts spontaneously adds it to her spells known for free.
Enduring Spells (Ex): Starting at 3rd level, all of an arcane archer's arcane spells have their durations doubled, as if she had applied the Extend Spell metamagic feat to them. This does not change their level or casting time. If she has the Extend Spell metamagic feat, she can apply it to triple their durations.
Hunter's Mercy: At 3rd level, an archer archer who prepares spells adds hunter's mercy [Spell Compendium] to her spellbook for free, and may lose a prepared spell to cast it like a cleric casting a cure spell. An arcane archer who casts spontaneously adds it to her spells known for free.
Hunter: At 4th level, an arcane archer gains Hunter [Manyshot, for those not using RoW] as a bonus feat. If she already has it, she may select any Combat [or fighter, for those not using RoW] or metamagic feat she meets the prerequisites for as a bonus feat instead.
Arrow Storm: At 5th level, an archer archer who prepares spells adds arrow storm [Spell Compendium] to her spellbook for free, and may lose a prepared spell to cast it like a cleric casting a cure spell. An arcane archer who casts spontaneously adds it to her spells known for free.
True Shot (Su): Beginning at 5th level, an arcane archer able to cast true strike (either has it prepared, or knows it and has an appropriate unused spell slot) can cast the spell and fire an arrow that benefits from it as a single standard action. If she prepares spells, she may lose a prepared spell to cast true strike like a cleric casting a cure spell.
Prepare Arrow (Su): Beginning at 7th level, as a standard action, an arcane archer can place a spell into an arrow as if using imbue, and the arrow holds the spell until it's fired. She may only have one arrow prepared at a time.
Sniper: At 9th level, an arcane archer gains Sniper [Improved Precise Shot, for those not using RoW] as a bonus feat. If she already has it, she may select any Combat [or fighter, for those not using RoW] or metamagic feat she meets the prerequisites for as a bonus feat instead.
Martial Mage (Ex): Starting at 10th level, an arcane archer's Base Attack Bonus is equal to her highest arcane caster level, regardless of what class levels she has, but can't in any event be greater than her Hit Dice.
Balance Analysis
I rebuilt the arcane archer as a caster-PrC based on imbue arrow and the elf racial proficiency with bows. Imbue arrow allows them to use their spell-casting and archery at the same time. Enhanced arrows give them substantial amounts of damage if used right, making a full-attack a plausible alternative to casting a spell, while preserving the flavor of an archer who makes their arrows magical. The rest of their abilities assist in the combination of spells with archery or offer better archery options via spells.
The arcane archer's Same Game analysis looks similar to the eldritch knight's, so I'll do it very quickly, for a wizard 6/arcane archer 4.
A hall of magical runes: See eldritch knight. Sure win.
A fire giant: Grease and freezing burst giantbane arrows. Sure win.
A young blue dragon: In melee, shivering touch. At range, dragonbane flaming frost arrows. You don't have many hp, so its breath might get you. Likely win.
A bebilith: You have Spot, but it hasn't been in-class for many levels, so you probably don't see the bebilith. If you do, though, you can probably kill it at range. Likely loss.
A vrock: The DR 10/good, energy resistances, and saves make it hard for you to hurt, even with demonbane magebane seeking arrows. Likely loss.
A tag-team of mindflayers: Decent Will save and aberrationbane magebane shocking arrows make short work of them. Likely win.
An evil necromancer: This is an initiative contest. Toss-up.
6 trolls: Three fireballs. Sure win.
A horde of shadows: Fireballs or ghost touch undeadbane flaming arrows, but you still probably die to the ambush. Likely loss.
Sure wins: 3
Likely wins: 2
Toss-up: 1
Likely losses: 3
Bladesinger
Unlike the arcane archer, which survived with its class abilities intact from 3.0 despite radical changes in the environment, the bladesinger has the singular honor of being one of the most-revised PrCs in third edition. It's gone through no fewer than four distinct versions, first in Tome and Blood, then in the Tome and Blood web errata, then in Races of Faerun, and most recently in Complete Warrior. It's varied from being about as effective as any full-BAB class (that is to say, not very) to complete and total uselessness.
BAB: +1
Feats: Elusive Target. [Combat Expertise if not using RoW.]
Race: Elf or half-elf.
Proficiencies: Proficient with all martial weapons and light armor.
Skills: Balance 4, Concentration 4, Perform (dance) 2, Perform (sing) 2, Tumble 4.
Spells: Ability to cast 1st-level arcane spells.
Hit Die: d8.
Class Skills: The bladesinger's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Balance (Dex), Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Handle Animal (Cha), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Perform (Cha), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Sense Motive (Wis), Sleight of Hand (Dex), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), Swim (Str), and Tumble (Dex).
Skill Points/Level: 4 + Int Modifier.
BAB: Good (1/1), Saves: Fort: Poor; Reflex: Good; Will: Good.
Level, Abilities:
1 Bladesong School, minor spellsong, +1 arcane spellcasting level
2 Dance of air, lesser spellsong, +1 arcane spellcasting level
3 Blind Fighting, +1 arcane spellcasting level
4 Dance of blades, greater spellsong, +1 arcane spellcasting level
5 Insightful Strike, +1 arcane spellcasting level
6 Dance of death, major spellsong, +1 arcane spellcasting level
7 Subtle Cut, +1 arcane spellcasting level
8 Dance of fury, song of celerity, +1 arcane spellcasting level
9 Whirlwind, +1 arcane spellcasting level
10 Bladesong master, martial mage, +1 arcane spellcasting level
All of the following are class features of the bladesinger prestige class.
Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Bladesingers gain proficiency with no armor or weapon.
Spellcasting: Every level, a bladesinger casts spells (including gaining any new spell slots and spell knowledge) as if he had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class he had previous to gaining that level.
Bladesong School: Bladesingers devote themselves to the study of a single type of weapon above all others. Almost all bladesingers select light or one-handed weapons so they can wield them while also casting spells, but the exact weapon depends on a bladesinger's school, with swords the most popular choice. They gain the Combat School feat for their chosen weapon. [If not using RoW rules, they gain Weapon Focus at 1st level, Weapon Specialization at 3rd level, Greater Weapon Focus at 5th level, Greater Weapon Specialization at 7th level, and Weapon Supremacy at 9th level, all with their chosen weapon.]
Minor Spellsong (Ex): A bladesinger does not suffer arcane spell failure from light armor.
Dance of Air (Ex): Beginning at 2nd level, while wearing light or no armor and wielding his chosen weapon, a bladesinger gains a dodge bonus to AC equal to the level of the highest-level arcane spell he has prepared or the highest-level arcane spell slot he has unused.
Lesser Spellsong (Ex): Starting at 2nd level, while wearing light or no armor and wielding his chosen weapon, a bladesinger may take 10 on Concentration checks to cast defensively.
Blind Fighting (Ex): At 3rd level, a bladesinger gains Blind Fighting [Blind-Fight, for those not using RoW] as a bonus feat. If he already has it, he may select any Combat [or fighter, for those not using RoW], Skill, or metamagic feat he meets the prerequisites for as a bonus feat instead.
Dance of Blades (Ex): Beginning at 4th level, while wearing light or no armor, a bladesinger gains a bonus equal to one-half his class level when using or defending against trips, disarms, sunders, or feints with his chosen weapon. He has the Edge against any opponent whose Dexterity, Intelligence, and Charisma are less than his Intelligence or his Charisma.
Greater Spellsong (Ex): Starting at 4th level, when a bladesinger casts a spell while wearing light or no armor and wielding his chosen weapon, he does not provoke an attack of opportunity.
Insightful Strike: At 5th level, a bladesinger gains Insightful Strike [Improved Critical with his chosen weapon, for those not using RoW] as a bonus feat. If he already has it, he may select any Combat [or fighter, for those not using RoW], Skill, or metamagic feat he meets the prerequisites for as a bonus feat instead.
Dance of Death (Su): Beginning at 6th level, a bladesinger's magic guides his blows to deadly accuracy. While wearing light or no armor, as an immediate action after confirming a critical hit with his chosen weapon, a bladesinger can sacrifice a prepared spell or spell slot, as if he had cast it, and add the level of the spell to his critical multiplier for that hit.
Major Spellsong (Ex): Starting at 6th level, whenever a bladesinger casts a spell while wearing light or no armor and wielding his chosen weapon, he gains a +3 dodge bonus to AC until the beginning of his next turn.
Subtle Cut: At 7th level, a bladesinger gains Subtle Cut [Melee Weapon Mastery with his chosen weapon's damage type, for those not using RoW] as a bonus feat. If he already has it, he may select any Combat [or fighter, for those not using RoW], Skill, or metamagic feat he meets the prerequisites for as a bonus feat instead.
Dance of Fury (Ex): Beginning at 8th level, whenever he makes a full attack with his chosen weapon while wearing light or no armor, he gains an additional attack at his full attack bonus.
Song of Celerity (Ex): Starting at 8th level, while wearing light or no armor and wielding his chosen weapon, a bladesinger may cast spells at least four levels lower than the highest level he can cast as swift actions, as if he had applied the Quicken Spell feat to them. In addition, he gains Quicken Spell as a bonus feat; if he already has it, he may select any Combat [or fighter, for those not using RoW], Skill, or metamagic feat he meets the prerequisites for as a bonus feat instead.
Whirlwind: At 9th level, a bladesinger gains Whirlwind [Spring Attack, for those not using RoW] as a bonus feat. If he already has it, he may select any Combat [or fighter, for those not using RoW], Skill, or metamagic feat he meets the prerequisites for as a bonus feat instead.
Bladesong Master: At 10th level, a bladesinger masters his art and starts his own bladesong school. He gains a +3 bonus to attack rolls and Armor Class against anyone wielding his chosen weapon; also, if he takes any Leadership feat [Leadership, for those not using RoW] he gains a +3 bonus to his Leadership score provided he takes a bladesinger as a cohort.
Martial Mage (Ex): Beginning at 10th level, a bladesinger's Base Attack Bonus is equal to his highest arcane caster level, regardless of what class levels he has, but can't in any event be greater than his Hit Dice.
Balance Analysis
The original second edition bladesinger was a kit for fighter/mages, so I decided to take the class back to its roots, making it into a true hybrid. I designed the eldritch knight as a flexible hybrid who could use most possible combat styles; in contrast, I gave the bladesinger a focused style with specific limitations, one-handed weapons and light armor. The bladesinger abilities are, in general, more defensive in nature, which means they need to be either more powerful or more plentiful; I chose the latter. Correct use of dance of death and dance of fury should allow them to keep up in damage, to make it a viable alternative to casting.
The Same Game analysis for the bladesinger, again, looks familiar. Let's look at it for an elf fighter 1/wizard 1/bladesinger 8.
A hall of magical runes: See eldritch knight. Sure win.
A fire giant: Grease and a bow will take it, as usual. Sure win.
A young blue dragon: In melee, shivering touch. At range, nuke it with spells. You have a decent Reflex save and decent hp, but there's still a chance it might hit you with too many breaths since you don't have evasion. Likely win.
A bebilith: You have Spot and enough skill points to take ranks in it, so you'll probably see it, and can probably take it down with spells at a distance. Likely win.
A vrock: The energy resistances and good saves make it hard for you to kill with spells, while the DR 10/good and decent hp makes it slow to kill that way. Chances are, its melee can't hurt you much either because of good AC, so it becomes a race between your damage and its spores and occasional hits. However, it has a 35% chance of getting another vrock, which will tilt the odds against you. Likely loss.
A tag-team of mindflayers: High Will save means you're likely to beat mindblast and plane shift, and you can make them explode with dance of fury and dance of death. Likely win.
An evil necromancer: This is an initiative contest. Toss-up.
6 trolls: Three fireballs. Sure win.
A horde of shadows: Fireballs will kill them, but even with high touch AC they're likely to overwhelm you. Likely loss.
Sure wins: 3
Likely wins: 3
Toss-up: 1
Likely losses: 2
Again, about the same as the rest of these classes, in a similar pattern.
The Seeker of the Misty Isle
This prestige class, appearing in Complete Divine, hybridizes casting and skills. However, the abilities the seeker of the misty isle grants shouldn't cost one level of casting, much less two. Druids have a skill list that's almost identical and they get 4+Int skills: the minor skill bonuses, spell-like abilities, and extra domains in no way make up for the lost casting. In practice, it would work fine as a full-casting PrC with the same abilities, so that's how I'd changed it.
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Bigode
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Post by Bigode » Sun Apr 27, 2008 9:46 pm

First, thanks for the offer. Second, no way to put it in the thread start?
Last edited by Bigode on Sun Apr 27, 2008 9:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

> Hans Freyer, s.b.u.h. wrote:A manly, a bold tone prevails in history. He who has the grip has the booty.

> Huston Smith wrote:Life gives us no view of the whole. We see only snatches here and there, (...)

> brotherfrancis75 wrote:Perhaps you imagine that Ayn Rand is our friend? And the Mont Pelerin Society? No, those are but the more subtle versions of the Bolshevik Communist Revolution you imagine you reject. (...) FOX NEWS IS ALSO COMMUNIST!

> LDSChristian wrote:True. I do wonder which is worse: killing so many people like Hitler did or denying Christ 3 times like Peter did.

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Post by Bigode » Mon Apr 28, 2008 9:58 pm

Since the MT seems to be the most egregious issue ...
The 2 things we definitely don't want are: prerequisites involving 2nd-level casting in 2 classes (because it puts you at worse casting than a bard), and (IMO, at least) a required large amount of levels in other classes after finishing MT (namely, a class that puts you far from character level 20). If anyone wonders why the second, because even if, say, one made a balanced 10-level class, there would be the problem where people would likely pick all levels in the same class after finishing MT, basically stopping being a hybrid altogether. So, I don't think a 10-level PrC would be good.
So, assuming a class that goes to level 20, the prerequisite issue is: requiring 1 level in each and giving all CLs thereafter causes the seemingly excessive power we have now; requiring 3 levels in each isn't feasible, because while I do think the 20-level character would be OK (see later on Leadership), the 7-level character definitely wouldn't; having asymetrical requirements de-hybridizes the character (IMO, at least), and requiring 2 levels in each class seems hard to enforce. So I see 2 things to do: either find out a way to require an arcane 2/divine 2 character, or require an 1/1 and not giving all CLs. Of course, that would be compensated for with actual class features; the thing in my head ATM would be to take out 1 CL from both classes every 6 levels (giving a major ability in those, while very possibly having minor abilities at other levels, especially 1st). The end result is a character that casts up to 8th-level spells and has presumably good abilities, or someone could choose to have 9th-level spells by missing the "capstone" (I don't particularly like the concept, but it seems to work in the particular case).
The other question's what those abilities would be. One things that helps to de-tangle the issue's to look at the DMG MT: notice how it's not easy to enter by PHB druids (though I was surprised and more than a little offended when I noticed they don't have Religion), and how it wouldn't help their signature skill anyway (Nature, and finding out MTs don't have all Knowledges was another bad surprise). While I know Iaimeki changed both issues, my point's that the MT, despite the barest nod to druids in the description, was concepted for clerics. For druids, fixing the arcane hierophant (not that I'm trying to push Iaimeki into doing it) would be a fitting solution, and making the MT require cleric class features would make it easier to give it its own features (or so I suppose, but check Catharz's ideas, above).
Though, I rather agree that, at the point you have a 18-level PrC, you might as well make a base class. The problem sorta is: what the hell is a base class MT? At that point, you might just make something like the sage, since the only claim to fame the MT has' the enormous spell list anyway.
That ties into: the guard has some interesting abilities (and fills a defensive melee role quite differently from the fighter and knight), the priest looks a lot like what the favored soul should be, and the sage looks similar to the Trollman-Suilin sorcerer, and has the modification I'd give to the latter (access to nonwizard spells). I could see all of them as honest-to-goodness PC classes; of course, the first 2 (and possibly the finished version of the third if it existed) have lots of class features designed to compensate for low wealth; they could be made into a set of NPC abilties, which'd enable quick making of low-wealth characters of any class (if the tables Iaimeki did were separated by progression types instead of by class). That, in turn, ties into: what if "+1 attack, +1 dodge AC, +1 saves, +2 damage (with anything, I'd say), +1 bonus to initiative, and +1 HP per HD" was an actual stacking feat (it's definitely I could see being popular with some players ...)?
Druid: well, saner balance than the PHB one, sure, but: a) wildshape isn't finished - if you (Iaimeki) still remember the number of traits at each level, could you include it? And b) still looks better than other full spellcasters; my suggestions would be to make its base spell list be just the PHB one and add spells known (as per the Tomes), and stagger its casting as per Frank's bard (namely, non-0 spell levels delayed by 2 class levels), possibly accompanied with some signature spells being dropped to level 0 (again, as per Frank's bard). Then, one or both of giving it other class features one might care about, and raising its skill points back to 4 (especially now that it either doesn't replace Str/Dex, or replaces the entire character; BTW, I much prefer the first version).
Leadership: first off, CR math would tell us that it single-handedly raises one's CR by 1; that seems enough evidence of overpoweredness. Moreover, I've to admit I don't believe much in CR math, and think that generally, 2 X-2 opponents are much better than 1 CR X opponent. So, the comparison to Leadership for the MT doesn't have weight for me, though for the other classes (even where Leadership was explicitly mentioned, such as the AT), they all had enough handicaps to be what I could call balanced (against non-hybrid PrC'd spellcasters, which admittedly's higher than my personal preference, but consistent with monster CRs - which I don't think the MT is).

> Hans Freyer, s.b.u.h. wrote:A manly, a bold tone prevails in history. He who has the grip has the booty.

> Huston Smith wrote:Life gives us no view of the whole. We see only snatches here and there, (...)

> brotherfrancis75 wrote:Perhaps you imagine that Ayn Rand is our friend? And the Mont Pelerin Society? No, those are but the more subtle versions of the Bolshevik Communist Revolution you imagine you reject. (...) FOX NEWS IS ALSO COMMUNIST!

> LDSChristian wrote:True. I do wonder which is worse: killing so many people like Hitler did or denying Christ 3 times like Peter did.

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Jacob_Orlove
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Post by Jacob_Orlove » Mon Apr 28, 2008 11:38 pm

You could always make the entry requirement "1st level arcane and divine spells, base will save +6". That way, you can enter as a Clr2/Wiz2, or either of Clr4/Wiz1 and Clr1/Wiz4.
You could even cheat your way in as Clr1/Wiz1/Other1, where Other is anything with a good Will save. But that puts you just as far behind in both progressions as Clr2/Wiz2, so it should be fine.
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Maxus
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Post by Maxus » Tue Apr 29, 2008 1:15 am

> Jacob_Orlove wrote:You could always make the entry requirement "1st level arcane and divine spells, base will save +6". That way, you can enter as a Clr2/Wiz2, or either of Clr4/Wiz1 and Clr1/Wiz4.
> You could even cheat your way in as Clr1/Wiz1/Other1, where Other is anything with a good Will save. But that puts you just as far behind in both progressions as Clr2/Wiz2, so it should be fine.

Not fine. You're better off taking Leadership so you keep full-casting in one class, cohort-level casting in another, and you have that cohort-level casting conveniently located in a body separate from yours, capable of taking actions in the same turn as you.
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Jacob_Orlove
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Post by Jacob_Orlove » Tue Apr 29, 2008 2:30 am

I have an idea. Let's design two MT classes. One will be for a game where Leadership is allowed and common, the other can be for games where players or DMs don't bring in that feat.
Because honestly, no game I have played ever allowed Leadership. Is everyone else's experience so different? Is Leadership a common feat choice?
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Bigode
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Post by Bigode » Tue Apr 29, 2008 2:35 am

Jacob: I could see that working. But I really would prefer it to be balanced for having real class features.

> Maxus wrote:Not fine. You're better off taking Leadership so you keep full-casting in one class, cohort-level casting in another, and you have that cohort-level casting conveniently located in a body separate from yours, capable of taking actions in the same turn as you.

The thing is, I don't even see why Leadership should exist conceputally, and I just put an argument against its supposed balance, so I don't think comparing anything to it works. Also, especially with leadership feats stacking in Tome, why'd you even have anything else (not to mention that "someone walks around you" sounds more like roleplaying than a character ability)?
EDIT: simuposting FTW. I could get behind that (Jacob's latest post). And I'd totally call the current version the Leadership-allowed version. As for the other, what about my ideas in the first page?
Last edited by Bigode on Tue Apr 29, 2008 2:38 am, edited 2 times in total.

> Hans Freyer, s.b.u.h. wrote:A manly, a bold tone prevails in history. He who has the grip has the booty.

> Huston Smith wrote:Life gives us no view of the whole. We see only snatches here and there, (...)

> brotherfrancis75 wrote:Perhaps you imagine that Ayn Rand is our friend? And the Mont Pelerin Society? No, those are but the more subtle versions of the Bolshevik Communist Revolution you imagine you reject. (...) FOX NEWS IS ALSO COMMUNIST!

> LDSChristian wrote:True. I do wonder which is worse: killing so many people like Hitler did or denying Christ 3 times like Peter did.

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CatharzGodfoot
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Post by CatharzGodfoot » Tue Apr 29, 2008 3:40 am

Why should Leadership be considered a balance point for prestige classes? Shouldn't we be using the same rubric as always?
A single character has a number of possible advantages over two characters splitting her abilities. For one, player characters tend to have better attributes. They also tend to have more resources in terms of powerful magic items. The item advantage holds true both in normal D&D and in Tome games (where two levels difference is +2/3 to an item bonus). A multi-caster can take advantage of stacking personal buffs. The stacking buffs issue even applies to buffs not cast by the character; a wizard trying to stealth-up or ward a party will find her resources significantly more strained by a bunch of cohorts than a predominance of multicasting.
It's also worth noting that most multicasting classes aren't strict averages of abilities. A standard Mystic Theurge, for example, still does not benefit from familiar advancement, domain power advancement, better hit dice, better fortitude saves, or undead turning (even at an appropriately reduced level).
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Post by JonSetanta » Tue Apr 29, 2008 8:08 am

Druid doesn't look too different from PHB. But I'm allergic to CoDzilla so I really don't care either wya.
Don't like the Sorcerer fixes. I'd prefer a smaller, mutable spell list over a bigger sluggish list with less castings per day.
Arcane Trickster looks like it would be decent, in a Bard kind of way, but I've never played a Rogue/caster so I wouldn't know how that works in action.
Eldritch Knight: more of the same. At this point, after 50+ warrior classes have crossed my eyes, I'd rather see one big fat warrior class with a feat or 2 every level to grab all those nifty abilities that everyone puts out in their own warrior-archetype class.
Mystic Theurge is meh... Sorry to state bluntly but it's just plain too good.
Dragon Disciple: argghphbt more dragons! Throw in some Fightan Magiks and you have the perfect pubescent boy fantasy trifecta: warriors, anime, and dragons.
However.... and yes my foot is being extracted from my mouth.... the Rage Mage is good stuff. That looks very nice. It's everything I'd expect out of a Rage Mage, even though I'd rather it to be a feat chain instead.
Very DBZ. Maybe that's why I like it.
Rage Mage 2: don't like as much. ehhh
The NPC classes are too complex. I prefer Frank's tiny little classes for idiots, like the cultist that has a handful of elemental attacks. Sorry.
They'll die anyway, so why bother picking a spell list? Or even going that far in level? If the NPC is that advanced, beyond L5, I'd rather use a PC class.
Sage especially is redundant, where a human Wizard/Loremaster would do fine. Swap out Familiar for another item creation and not much is different.
Why is Arcane Archer still limited to elves only? I like it and would love to try that but it should be more open to race.
And the Bladesinger's cap ability sucks. Too specific. That Bladesong Master is a sad ending.

> The Adventurer's Almanac wrote: ↑
> Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:25 pm
> Nobody gives a flying fuck about Tordek and Regdar.

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Iaimeki
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Post by Iaimeki » Tue Apr 29, 2008 7:12 pm

All of the posts are approaching their character limits (or some sort of limit) so it doesn't seem like I can add anything up above, unfortunately. The preview doesn't seem to warn about or respect the limits, so I couldn't tell in advance or else I would have made another post.
On the topic of the mystic theurge: I don't now nor I have ever thought that the mystic theurge is a good candidate for a PrC. It's entirely possible there isn't any way to do what the mystic theurge is supposed to do, advance arbitrary divine and arcane casting, in a workable way. If most full-casting classes had any features worth caring about (core druid's the major exception), it would be more clearly impossible and you'd have to write a PrC for every full-caster pairing, provided you didn't want to just write base classes in the first place.
Jacob_Orlove's suggestion for the MT is problematic: a Clr 1/Wiz 4/MT 2 is a 7th-level character that casts 3rd-level wizard spells and 2nd-level cleric spells, and you're never on par with a full wizard or cleric. Is having the ability to cast spells that tend to lag 1-2 levels behind your best spells in another class worth anything? I would have a hard time justifying taking a feat that did that for me except in some special cases with broken spells, much less a whole PrC. Regardless of whether you compare it to Leadership or not, it still has to stack up against what the other characters are doing.
On Leadership: imbalanced compared to what? Seriously, there is no standard for feat power of any kind whatsoever in the 3e rules, because Leadership is a feat and Run is also a feat. In terms of CR/EL math, if you work it out adding a CR-2 character to a character of CR is worth about 1.33 levels. Is this too much? Maybe, I don't have a conclusive argument either way. Nonetheless, I decided to go with the feat standard set out in RoW, which includes a Leadership feat. The ultimate test is whether that feat standard makes characters appropriate matches for monsters of their CR, but that's something only more analysis and playtesting can decide.
Catharz, I don't see how your argument undercuts anything I've said: actions are worth more than the (usually small costs) of multibuffing, and a multiclassed character still gets the benefits of being higher-level, just not the benefits of being higher-level in a particular class.
It's best to view the druid I posted as a bunch of ideas about how one might create a druid, rather then the class itself. The key things to do are to unbreak wild shape (no more octofu druids) and to make it so druids multiclass the same way as the other core casters, so that when you take "+1 level of a divine casting class" you still get most of the benefits of druid just like a cleric, wizard, or sorcerer. Frank's already discussed the two basic ways to handle polymorph-type effects, replacement or static bonuses, and I won't reiterate that here. I see two approaches for the multiclassing problem. The first is the spell slot sacrifices for wild shape benefits based on caster level that I was trying to work out. The second is to make wild shape a series of spells similar to summon nature's ally and let the druid spontaneously convert to them. To be honest, I now prefer the latter method, and if I were to write it, that's what I would do. I'd put the druid's other random abilities every even level, something like this:
Level, Abilities:
1 Shapechanger, spells (wild shape as a spell), wild empathy
2 Nature sense, woodland stride
3
4 Trackless step
5
6 Nature companion
7
8 Venom immunity
9
10
11
12 A thousand faces
13
14 Timeless body
15
"Nature companion" should be some appropriate creature of a CR two less than the druid's character level, and is the only ability on this list that's worth much.
I was never able to get druid to a state I liked, which is why it's so unfinished--it's a hard class to write, as I think Frank noted.
sigma9999, most of your disagreements on the PrCs seem to be about flavor rather than mechanics, or about how *you* would write D&D rather than how it's written. You don't present any arguments on the rest.
The problem with Frank's NPC classes is that they don't stack up at higher CRs. If you want to use any low-HD race at all in your games when your players are anywhere close to level 10, you *have* to use a PC class--and that means picking out feats and spells, and keeping track of all the options in combat. A level 10 PC can easily take an hour to design and calculate, and is a bitch to run because you have to keep track of so many abilities at once. If you don't find either of these to be problems in your games, because you have large amounts of free time to design your NPCs and are amazing at multitasking when DMing, these classes are not for you. As it is, these are my attempts at making NPCs where if you need a particular type of character in game, you can sub in one with at most one or two small choices (priests choose channeling positive/negative energy and a flavor and that's *it*, all their other spells and such are predefined) and run a group of NPCs without going crazy trying to keep track of abilities.
The NPC classes as written aren't intended stats-wise or complexity-wise to be PC classes. PC classes can be more complicated than monsters because some complexity keeps the players interested and PCs have more time to focus on their characters, whereas NPCs shouldn't be much more complicated than monsters, ideally. (This is about the minimum complexity I could see how to do it with and still keep NPCs roughly competitive at their CRs.) If I were to do it over I'd just declare that NPCs don't get feats at all, instead getting a set of static abilities and bonuses, rather than trying what I did with feat substitution. If you wanted to separate out the "feat bonuses + list" from the "class bonuses + list," you could make it easier to turn NPC classes into PC classes, but I can't see why you'd want to.
My total list of NPC classes was to be the guard, the priest, the sage, the battlemage (an arcane caster with a single choice of specialty like "necromancy" or "evocations", intended to cover adversarial mages for PCs), the general (a character with some general combat power but with abilities focused on boosting allies rather than serving as a speedbump like the guard, and more social skills), and the diplomat (abilities for social situations and skullduggery, as well as sneak attack, basically a specialized rogue).
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Post by JonSetanta » Tue Apr 29, 2008 9:00 pm

> Iaimeki wrote: sigma9999, most of your disagreements on the PrCs seem to be about flavor rather than mechanics, or about how *you* would write D&D rather than how it's written. You don't present any arguments on the rest.

How is this a shock to you?
In my view PrCs are worthless. They shouldn't exist. But here they are, so this is what I think of them.
I don't present arguments because I don't have arguments to present. Your material is good and it's well written but I don't think any further than that these days about anything gaming-related. Guess I'm just too fucking exhausted.
Must it be black and white? How about a big grey 'meh, it is'?

> The Adventurer's Almanac wrote: ↑
> Fri Oct 01, 2021 10:25 pm
> Nobody gives a flying fuck about Tordek and Regdar.

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Post by Jacob_Orlove » Tue Apr 29, 2008 10:48 pm

> Iaimeki wrote:Jacob_Orlove's suggestion for the MT is problematic: a Clr 1/Wiz 4/MT 2 is a 7th-level character that casts 3rd-level wizard spells and 2nd-level cleric spells, and you're never on par with a full wizard or cleric. Is having the ability to cast spells that tend to lag 1-2 levels behind your best spells in another class worth anything? I would have a hard time justifying taking a feat that did that for me except in some special cases with broken spells, much less a whole PrC. Regardless of whether you compare it to Leadership or not, it still has to stack up against what the other characters are doing.

Obviously that MT is going to look bad at an odd character level. At level 8, though, you're casting 4th level spells just like everyone else.
And yes, let's compare that to a PHB caster class. How about the Sorcerer? Granted, it's not as good as a Wizard or Cleric, but Sorcerers are still plenty good enough to beat up on level-appropriate monsters, and this MT compares pretty favorably to a standard Sorc.
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Post by Bigode » Wed Apr 30, 2008 1:04 am

Sigma: if, by own admission, you have no arguments to present and consider PrCs inherently worthless, you might just not say anything about PrCs, and possibly, by extension, shut up and fvck off the thread. In short, you don't need to post on every thread on this forum or any other, when you have nothing of use to add. But, on the one thing not addressed by Iaimeki that you said: you want "sorcerer = arcane spirit shaman", right? That's totally possible to design, and should be quite easy, but, for example, I'm under the impression that everybody other than you goes with fixed spells known because "innate power" doesn't sound like something one changes every day - OTOH, you might try making it yourself elsewhere, and I suppose you'd get relevant feedback.
As for a real discussion ...

> Iaimeki wrote:On the topic of the mystic theurge: I don't now nor I have ever thought that the mystic theurge is a good candidate for a PrC. It's entirely possible there isn't any way to do what the mystic theurge is supposed to do, advance arbitrary divine and arcane casting, in a workable way. If most full-casting classes had any features worth caring about (core druid's the major exception), it would be more clearly impossible and you'd have to write a PrC for every full-caster pairing, provided you didn't want to just write base classes in the first place.

Just so you know, I completely agree; but I was posting on what I perceive as issues as the MT currently stands, and I feel my suggestions (or Jacob's) would leave the class comparable to a sorcerer as Jacob says - it just requires not doing a comparison with Leadership (see below), and instead comparing to what other class combination gives.

> Iaimeki wrote:Is having the ability to cast spells that tend to lag 1-2 levels behind your best spells in another class worth anything?

Yes, it is? I apologize for not going in detail in this case, but I don't even know how to approach our disagreement for the moment ...

> Iaimeki wrote:On Leadership: imbalanced compared to what? Seriously, there is no standard for feat power of any kind whatsoever in the 3e rules, because Leadership is a feat and Run is also a feat. In terms of CR/EL math, if you work it out adding a CR-2 character to a character of CR is worth about 1.33 levels. Is this too much? Maybe, I don't have a conclusive argument either way. Nonetheless, I decided to go with the feat standard set out in RoW, which includes a Leadership feat. The ultimate test is whether that feat standard makes characters appropriate matches for monsters of their CR, but that's something only more analysis and playtesting can decide.

While saying "playtesting gives the best answer" is a sensible approach, and I know 3.x feats are all over the power ladder, what I'd say is: Leadership alone stands head and shoulders above at least the vast majority of other feats, and I'd say even Natural Spell (while it changes you from "can't cast" to "can cast", and doesn't penalize casting in any way - thus you're still at CL instead of CL-2 - but doesn't supply standard actions, that could even be argued to come from classes that cast better spells). Regardless of the specific example, I suppose you wouldn't disagree about the vast majority of official feats; and we probably agree that RoW combat feats have much better internal balance, and I couldn't see someone arguing that Blitz (or anuy other) ~= Leadership. Also, a feat adding 1.33 CR (assuming, of course, that we believe in the CR math, but let's go with it for this part of the argument) should be too much by definition if feats are supposed to go with other bonuses and abilities to compose a level (i.e. +1 CR). Finally, while you aren't particularly at fault for sharing Tome assumptions (that is, leadership feats exist), I dare say the Tomes have things known as flaws; examples are: Frank himself said he'd lower highest-sphere abilities from at-will use, and at least one sphere's completely and absolutely broken as it stands now, because the relevant spells ended up not being fixed. So, nothing's perfect, and some stuff isn't even wrong, just got its finishing stages delayed likely forever; so, who (other than F&K) even knows if leadership feats aren't missing some key point? And well, even if not, I and others dare say it's not right, arguments made above. And, we know, precedent determined to be bad (not that I'm saying this in particular has already been - just talking if it's so) does better ignored. Side note: how come "1.33"? AFAIR, CR-1 + CR-3 = CR; thus, CR + CR-2 = CR+1, not "CR+1.33".

> Iaimeki wrote:The NPC classes as written aren't intended stats-wise or complexity-wise to be PC classes.

I put it that your classes, other than the absence of proper feats, are no less complex than, say, samurai (and don't mean it as a bad thing, as the latter is pretty damn simple); so, if the feat replacement you made could work as a feat, and tables are decoupled from specific classes and used as reference, we could have premade NPCs of a number of other classes: sounds like a decent objective, right?

> Iaimeki wrote:If you wanted to separate out the "feat bonuses + list" from the "class bonuses + list," you could make it easier to turn NPC classes into PC classes, but I can't see why you'd want to.

As for the reverse conversion: guards have some interesting proprietary abilities and a fighting style (IMO) no (or at least not much) less distinctive than a number of other Tome classes (the simpler ones), and, moreover, one of my players expressed interest in playing one (as I might have myself); as said, priests look to me pretty much like what people would concept a favored soul to be, except not devoid of class features or any reason in particular for being chosen over other divine casters, and, IIRC, the favored soul is the sole spontaneous divine caster - other than the spirit shaman, with its different mechanic - and is thus a class especially deserving of fixing; and sages look like what I was already planning on doing to the Trollman/Suilin sorcerer, which's totally a PC class, and unfinished to boot. Can you see it now?
Actually, I've to admit I'm not sure why you listed the intended NPC classes, but here's an answer that might sound vaguely relevant: as for whatever interest I might have had in making them PC, the battlemage'd be pretty redundant with my plan to have 4 spontaneous all-spells-known arcanists, each for a pair of schools; and the general'd likely overlap enough with Frank's marshal and other leader classes in my games. The diplomat might be missed, but I'm certainly not pushing you into doing it, and I suppose I could do it myself when I decided to (which I didn't because a number of other classes I intend to have are pretty diplomatic, despite not having it in their names).
Druid: what I asked was how you intended to determine how many wildshape traits a druid has; while your post seems to imply there's a spell-to-trait relation, it's not explained on the OP or the previous post AFAICT, so what did you intend, if you had some idea (not to say I particularly prefer it to actually using spells, as per the preference you'd currently have)?
Last edited by Bigode on Wed Apr 30, 2008 1:21 am, edited 1 time in total.

> Hans Freyer, s.b.u.h. wrote:A manly, a bold tone prevails in history. He who has the grip has the booty.

> Huston Smith wrote:Life gives us no view of the whole. We see only snatches here and there, (...)

> brotherfrancis75 wrote:Perhaps you imagine that Ayn Rand is our friend? And the Mont Pelerin Society? No, those are but the more subtle versions of the Bolshevik Communist Revolution you imagine you reject. (...) FOX NEWS IS ALSO COMMUNIST!

> LDSChristian wrote:True. I do wonder which is worse: killing so many people like Hitler did or denying Christ 3 times like Peter did.

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