PDA

View Full Version : Warrior of the Fiend-Blood [3.5 D&D PrC]



wadledo
2009-04-18, 11:08 PM
Warrior of the Fiend-Blood
http://www.wizards.com/dnd/images/hoh_gallery/91985.jpg
An unknown Warrior of the Blood is a dangerous thing......

Brothers to the Fiend-Blooded, warriors of the fiend-blood are made of far more grit and iron than their twins. Carving their way through the battle fields of the abyss, crushing phalanxes of angels in the heavens, or blasting through a horde of orcs on the material plane, the Warrior of the Fiend Blood is both hated and admired, some exhibiting the paragon of Darwinism while others want for nothing but slaughter.
They are truly a thing to be feared, and truly a thing to be scoured fom the earth.
-Gunertel Silverblade, Knight of the Chalice

HD: d8

Requirements
Race: Any humanoid race (can not already be a half-fiend).
Alignment: Any nongood alignment.
BAB: +4.
Skills: Concentration 8 ranks, Knowledge (arcana) or (religion) 8 ranks, Knowledge (the planes) 8 ranks, Martial Lore 6 ranks.
Feats: Power Attack, Combat Casting, Fiendish Heritage.
Spellcasting: Ability to cast 1st level spells or able to use least invocations.
Maneuvers: Ability to use 2nd level maneuvers including at least one stance.
Special: Must have a fiend as an ancestor.

Class Skills (4+Int modifier per level): Bluff, Balance, Climb, Concentration, Intimidation, Knowledge (arcana), Knowledge (the planes), Knowledge (religion), Martial Lore, Spellcraft, Swim, Tumble.

{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|Spellcasting
1st|+1|+2|+0|+0|Fiendish Companion, Fiendish Heritage +1 AC, Ancestral Power|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
2nd|+2|+3|+0|+0|Fiendish Channeling|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
3rd|+3|+3|+1|+1|Dance of Ages Stance, Fiendish Heritage +1 Cha|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
4th|+4|+4|+1|+1|Fiendish Channeling, Ancestral Power|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
5th|+5|+4|+1|+1|Feindish Heritage +1 Int|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
6th|+6|+5|+2|+2|Fiendish Channeling|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
7th|+7|+5|+2|+2|Fiendish Heritage +1 Dex, Ancestral Power|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
8th|+8|+6|+2|+2|Fiendish Channeling, Mettle|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
9th|+9|+6|+3|+3|Fiendish Heritage +1 Con, True Bloods Blade|+1 level of existing spellcasting class
10th|+10|+7|+3|+3|Fiendish Exaltation, Fiendish Channeling, Ancestral Power|--[/table]

{table="head"]Level|Man. Known|Man. Readied|Stances Known
1st|1|0|0
2nd|0|0|0
3rd|0|1|1
4th|1|0|0
5th|0|0|0
6th|0|1|0
7th|1|0|0
8th|0|0|1
9th|0|1|0
10th|1|0|0[/table]

Maneuvers: At levels 1, 4, 7 and 10 the Warrior of the Fiend-Blood gains new maneuvers known from the Diamond Mind, Shadow Hand and or one other discipline, chosen at first level. If these discipline's main skills are not class skills for you, they becomes one. You must meet a maneuver's prerequisite to learn it. You add your full Warrior of the Fiend-Blood levels to your initiator level to determine your total initiator level and your highest-level maneuvers known.
At 3rd, 6th and 9th levels, you gain additional maneuvers readied per day.

Stances Known: At 3rd level and again at 8th level, you learn a new martial stance from the Diamond Mind or Shadow Hand disciplines as well as the same discipline chosen at first level for you maneuvers. You must meet the stances prerequisites to learn it.

Spellcasting: At each level except tenth, you gain new spells per day and an increase in caster level(and spells known, if applicable) as if you had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class to which you belonged before adding the prestige class level. You do not gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained, except that your warrior of the fiend-blood levels also stack with any other spellcaster levels for determining familiar abilities. If you had more than one arcane spellcasting class before becoming a warrior of the fiend-blood, you must decide to which class to add each level for the purpose of determining spells per day, caster level, and spells known.

Fiendish Companion: This is the same as the Fiendish Companion class feature of the Fiend-Blooded (HoH, pg 103).

Fiendish Heritage (Ex): You draw on your blood for power both in and out of battle.

At 1st level, your flesh toughens slightly, giving you +1 natural armor bonus to AC.
At 3rd level, you gain a +1 boost to your Charisma score.
At 5th level, you gain a +1 boost to your Intelligence score.
At 7th level, you gain a +1 boost to your Dexterity score.
At 9th level, you gain a +1 boost to your Constitution score.

Ancestral Power (Ex): At 1st, 4th, 7th and 10th, you may choose any one Heritage feat you have the prerequisites for.

Fiendish Channeling (Su): Your blood calls to those of like blood, and those of like blood grant you power.
At 2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th, and 10th level, you may gain any one spell-like ability from any evil aligned outsider in the monster manual, as long as that spell is one of a level you can cast(though not necessarily a spell you can cast because of class), it has a 1/day use or greater, and is not of an opposing alignment.
You may use your 2nd level SLA 1/day when you first gain it, increasing to 3/day at 4th, 5/day at 6th and at will at 8th.
Your other SLA's follow a similar pattern, the 4th level SLA gaining additional uses per day at 6th (3/day), 8th (5/day), and 10th (At Will), the 6th level SLA gaining additional uses at 8th (3/day) and 10th (5/day), etc.
Your caster level for the SLA's is equal to your caster level in whatever spell casting class you chose when you began warrior of the fiend-blood, and the DC is equal to the level of the SLA plus you casting modifier.

Dance of Ages Stance (Su): At 3rd level you learn the first steps of the Immortal Dance, that all fiends know as well as their own hearts. You may lose the benefits of any stance you are currently in to gain the benefits of this one. While in this stance you may attune your motions with that of your heritage, letting the initiate ferocity of your blood flow into your magic. Once per encounter, when you hit with a power attack augmented maneuver or boost, you may not do any additional damage due to power attack and may deduct an amount equal or less than your caster level from the damage. As long as the attack still does damage, next turn the enemy you hit suffers a penalty on all saves verses your spells and spell-like abilities equal to the amount you subtracted from the damage last turn.
You can use this ability twice per encounter at 6th and three times at 8th.

Mettle (Ex): Fiends are known for being tough to kill and even harder to break. At 8th level and above, a warrior of the fiend-blood can resist magical and unusual attacks with great willpower or fortitude. If they make a successful Will or Fortitude save against an attack that normally would have a lesser effect on a successful save (such as any spell with a saving throw entry of Will half or Fortitude partial), he instead completely negates the effect. An unconscious or sleeping warrior of the fiend-blood does not gain the benefit of mettle.

True Bloods Blade (Su): At 9th level, you have shed almost all the mortal blood you can, leaving only a trace to pollute your attacks. Whenever you use a martial strike, boost or both against an enemy you may channel any touch spell, spell like ability, or your eldritch blast you have prepared or know(if you are a spontaneous caster) through it as a swift action. If the strike does not hit, the warrior of the fiend-blood may try again the next round, the spell remains charged in the weapon for as many rounds as the spell level. This can be used a number of times per day equal to the warrior of the fiend-blood's casting modifier.
At 10th level, this ability may be used at will.

Fiendish Exaltation (Ex): You are now as close to your ancestor as you can be while still retaining your mortal self. In addition to the ability boosts gained by your fiendish heritage, you now gain an additional +1 to Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence and Charisma, and a +2 to Strength. You also gain complete immunity to poison, and damage reduction 10/magic.

-------------------------------------

So, what do y'all think?
I'm pretty sure it's a biiiiiiiiiiit overpowered, but that could just be me.:smalltongue:

Pramxnim
2009-04-19, 12:29 AM
I'm pretty sure the feat requirements are a bit too harsh. This PrC can be entered soonest at lvl 6 (after Sorc 2/Warblade 3 or Duskblade 4/WB 1 or something) but barring a human (or being a Duskblade entry) there's really little you can do to acquire those feats. I'd say drop the Metamagic feat requirement, since this is a gish after all (and gishes don't often deal with metamagic except for Extend and Persist).

I see Power Attack as a requirement for many gish-like PrCs. What about archer gishes? Don't they get any love? How about making it Power Attack or Point Blank Shot? Just my 2 cents here.

The number of Maneuvers known is a tad too many methinks. I'd make it at levels 1,4,7,10 if I were you.

You changed the spellcasting progression. Why the decision if I might ask? I think the 1st level doesn't give you enough to warrant losing a spellcasting level (and if you're full caster, you've already lost 3 to Warblade or some such if you plan on entering early) while the 10th level capstone is too good not to lose a spellcasting level for. If you moved the dead spellcasting level back to 10th, the PrC be fine, since at that level, he'll have more stuff to play around with.

Fiendish Channeling (Su): There's a lot to clear up here. What is the DC of the SLAs based on? What is the caster level for those? Some clarification would be nice. It's ok to assume the players will know that the DC and CL are based on the spellcasting class you used to enter this class, but it's also prudent to cover all your bases.

The wording on this guy right now makes the SLAs a bit too strong if you ask me. The way it is worded, this PrC gives you the ability to have 5 SLAs usable at will earliest by level 15. With some tinkering around, you could very well have 9th level spells usable as SLAs at-will by level 19 (Wizard 5/Warblade 1/Fiend-Blood 9/Wizard 3/Fiend-Blood 1 gives Wizard casting 17 and CL 17)

I think your intention is for a level 10 Warrior of the Fiend-Blood (WFB) to receive SLAs in the pattern seen below:

SLA gained at WFB 2: At-will

SLA gained at WFB 4: At-will

SLA gained at WFB 6: 5/day

SLA gained at WFB 8: 3/day

SLA gained at WFB 10: 1/day

Still, allowing someone to cast Wish or Miracle as an SLA 1/day is still very very overpowered (even at level 19). To prevent such abuses, you can put in a small notice saying spells cast this way still incur XP costs as well as expensive component costs.

Also, the bonus feats on top of SLAs? Too strong.

If you insist on including bonus feats in there, I think you'd have to severely limit the SLAs. Make it so that the max spell level of an SLA that you can learn is 1/2 your WFB level (so you get 5th lvl spells at most). This prevents cheese and ensures that classes like Duskblade can still enjoy entering this class.



Dance of Ages Stance: That's... a bit... too much. You can incur a maximum of -20 on a save? That's more than Wish!. Make it 1/3 CL and I'll be very happy to say that it's balanced. Penalty to saves are a godsend not just to yourself but to other spellcasters in your group as well. If you want to make this ability viable w/o making the character take Practiced Spellcaster, make the limit 1/3 Caster Level + 1.

True Blood's Blade: Just make it at will when you get it. One level till you get to use it at will doesn't mean much... unless the 10th level were the one where you lose a spellcasting level. Then I'd understand limiting it to the casting stat modifier per day. (Because having something usable 18 times per day is pretty much at will already).

wadledo
2009-04-19, 09:14 AM
I'm pretty sure the feat requirements are a bit too harsh. This PrC can be entered soonest at lvl 6 (after Sorc 2/Warblade 3 or Duskblade 4/WB 1 or something) but barring a human (or being a Duskblade entry) there's really little you can do to acquire those feats. I'd say drop the Metamagic feat requirement, since this is a gish after all (and gishes don't often deal with metamagic except for Extend and Persist).True, I added the metamagic to give the bonus feats some meaning anyway.


I see Power Attack as a requirement for many gish-like PrCs. What about archer gishes? Don't they get any love? How about making it Power Attack or Point Blank Shot? Just my 2 cents here.But then how would they use dance of ages?:smalltongue:


The number of Maneuvers known is a tad too many methinks. I'd make it at levels 1,4,7,10 if I were you.Fair enough.


You changed the spellcasting progression. Why the decision if I might ask? I think the 1st level doesn't give you enough to warrant losing a spellcasting level (and if you're full caster, you've already lost 3 to Warblade or some such if you plan on entering early) while the 10th level capstone is too good not to lose a spellcasting level for. If you moved the dead spellcasting level back to 10th, the PrC be fine, since at that level, he'll have more stuff to play around with.I thought about either 1st, 10th or both 1st and 10th.
Since eldritch knight loses 1st level spellcasting, I thought that similar enough to be prudent.

I'll switch it to 10th, it'll make the similarities between it and Fiend-blooded that more pronounced.


Fiendish Channeling (Su): There's a lot to clear up here. What is the DC of the SLAs based on? What is the caster level for those? Some clarification would be nice. It's ok to assume the players will know that the DC and CL are based on the spellcasting class you used to enter this class, but it's also prudent to cover all your bases.You just had to point that out, didn't you?:smallannoyed:


The wording on this guy right now makes the SLAs a bit too strong if you ask me. The way it is worded, this PrC gives you the ability to have 5 SLAs usable at will earliest by level 15. With some tinkering around, you could very well have 9th level spells usable as SLAs at-will by level 19 (Wizard 5/Warblade 1/Fiend-Blood 9/Wizard 3/Fiend-Blood 1 gives Wizard casting 17 and CL 17)

I think your intention is for a level 10 Warrior of the Fiend-Blood (WFB) to receive SLAs in the pattern seen below:

SLA gained at WFB 2: At-will

SLA gained at WFB 4: At-will

SLA gained at WFB 6: 5/day

SLA gained at WFB 8: 3/day

SLA gained at WFB 10: 1/dayI thought that was what I said?:smallconfused:
I'll take a look at the ranger and see if I can make it clearer.


Still, allowing someone to cast Wish or Miracle as an SLA 1/day is still very very overpowered (even at level 19). To prevent such abuses, you can put in a small notice saying spells cast this way still incur XP costs as well as expensive component costs.There are only 2 evil outsiders in the MM that have wish like that, and neither(I think), has it like a SLA.
Though I might make it clear that it is only SLA's that have a 1/day or greater use.


Also, the bonus feats on top of SLAs? Too strong.

If you insist on including bonus feats in there, I think you'd have to severely limit the SLAs. Make it so that the max spell level of an SLA that you can learn is 1/2 your WFB level (so you get 5th lvl spells at most). This prevents cheese and ensures that classes like Duskblade can still enjoy entering this class.I'd rather keep the SLA's as they are, and the bonus feats were mainly so the Fiendish line of feats could be continued, because they suck otherwise.
I'll take em' out and see if I can't fit the feats into some kind of progression.


Dance of Ages Stance: That's... a bit... too much. You can incur a maximum of -20 on a save? That's more than Wish!. Make it 1/3 CL and I'll be very happy to say that it's balanced. Penalty to saves are a godsend not just to yourself but to other spellcasters in your group as well. If you want to make this ability viable w/o making the character take Practiced Spellcaster, make the limit 1/3 Caster Level + 1.It's limited to caster level, you're reducing the damage as well as accuracy, it only works on saves against your spells, and at level 20, you're far better off just dropping a maw of chaos on their heads and doing something more productive than trying to hit them with a -20 to hit(possibly -10, but lets not get into that), -20 damage attack.


True Blood's Blade: Just make it at will when you get it. One level till you get to use it at will doesn't mean much... unless the 10th level were the one where you lose a spellcasting level. Then I'd understand limiting it to the casting stat modifier per day. (Because having something usable 18 times per day is pretty much at will already).Thanks for the modifier reminder, something looked off on that.:smallredface:

Pramxnim
2009-04-19, 04:48 PM
Well, you haven't removed the potential cheese from Fiendish Channeling quite yet, but in the end, it's your call on how you want the class to be. Considering the rarity of abusable SLAs and the fact that sane DMs will kill people trying to pull this off, it's quite ok. However, those sane DMs might not even allow your class in the first place, which is quite a bummer, since I like the flavour.

Aside from possibly getting access to really high level spells as SLAs (and thus bypassing XP and gold costs), this guy can spam mid level spells all day as well (standard Wiz 5/WB 1 entry gets 1 4th lvl spell as an SLA at lvl 7 and a 5th lvl spell at lvl 9). Polymorph anyone? Just kidding, poly morph is broken anyways.

Feeblemind is a great candidate, and is castable at-will at lvl 15 (DC 15 + Int)
Standard fare like L

Now this can be cheesed by delaying entry. The worst case is someone doing Wizard 5/WB 1/Spellsword 1/Abj Champ 4/FB 10. 17 BAB, Wizard casting 18 among other goodies, +:

1 6th lvl spell usable at-will (Greater Dispel Magic?)

1 7th lvl spell usable at-will (Greater Teleport (Balor + various others), Ethereal Jaunt (Succubus)

1 8th lvl spell usable 5/day (Power Word Stun (Pit Fiend)

1 9th lvl spell usable 3/day (Meteor Swarm (Pit Fiend)

Actually, there isn't much else. I looked through the MM and noticed that Evil Outsiders don't have a lot of variety when it comes to SLAs (It's all Greater Teleport, Invisibility, Hold Person, Dominate Monster etc.)
I personally think the way the original class did it (giving you extra spells known) gives you more flexibility, but your version gives lots of flavour.

I must admit that limiting them to 5th lvl spells only is bad, and the cheese involved is not really that cheesy (considering the limited amount of spells you could have).

Keep the feats though. I like those. But rather than provide too many universally useful feats (you had Arcane Strike and some other such ones), maybe limit it to the Fiendish Heritage line or feats that have a Fiendish flavour. That way, you don't have to waste feat slots into flavouring the perfect Fiendish guy.

In a nutshell, after much consideration, I think your version of Fiendish Channeling is great! It may seem overpowered at first, but there are worse evils out there.




Oh and one last thing. Can you please make it so that Warlocks can qualify for this PrC? I mean, Fiendish Heritage just screams Warlock to me. Maybe add in a requirement for least invocations (either 1st lvl spellcasting or able to use least invocations). Then you'd have to modify the 9th lvl ability a little to involve invocations (and/or add something that deals with Eldritch Blast). It's a little extra work, but I'm sure it'll be well received by all.

wadledo
2009-04-19, 06:45 PM
Actually, there isn't much else. I looked through the MM and noticed that Evil Outsiders don't have a lot of variety when it comes to SLAs (It's all Greater Teleport, Invisibility, Hold Person, Dominate Monster etc.) See why it's not overpowered as long as everything isn't At Will?


I personally think the way the original class did it (giving you extra spells known) gives you more flexibility, but your version gives lots of flavour.Part of the problem is that this class isn't just for spontaneous casters, which makes that particular class feature almost useless.
And yea, Flavor is Flavorful.

Keep the feats though. I like those. But rather than provide too many universally useful feats (you had Arcane Strike and some other such ones), maybe limit it to the Fiendish Heritage line or feats that have a Fiendish flavour. That way, you don't have to waste feat slots into flavouring the perfect Fiendish guy. I've added Ancestral Power, which goes for the Heritage, but there aren't that many fiendish feats aside from the Heritage chain.


Oh and one last thing. Can you please make it so that Warlocks can qualify for this PrC? I mean, Fiendish Heritage just screams Warlock to me. Maybe add in a requirement for least invocations (either 1st lvl spellcasting or able to use least invocations). Then you'd have to modify the 9th lvl ability a little to involve invocations (and/or add something that deals with Eldritch Blast). It's a little extra work, but I'm sure it'll be well received by all.I never play warlocks, so I never remember it, but yea, it's perfect for this class.
How would Fiendish Channeling work with warlock?
I'm pretty sure the effective spell level of invocations would work as spell level known, but I'm not sure.

Pramxnim
2009-04-19, 07:07 PM
To be honest, I've never played a Warlock before. Just did a quick check of the Complete Arcane, and it would seem the equivalent spell levels for Warlock invocations are:

Least: 1st and 2nd level spells

Lesser (from lvl 6th on): 3rd and 4th lvl spells

Greater (from lvl 11th on): 5th and 6th lvl spells

Dark (from lvl 16th on): 8th and 9th lvl spells (yeah they don't have any invocations that are 7th lvl. Weird)

Though if you count Draconic Invocations from Dragon Magic as Warlock Invocations, then Perilous Veil, Greater Draconic Flight, Instill Vulnerability are 7th lvl Dark invocations.

That book also provides the Warlock with Impenetrable Barrier as the sole 7th lvl equivalent Warlock Invocation.


If you include Invocations in the mix, then maybe Dragonfire Adepts can qualify for this class as well (hmm, Fiendish Dragons... delicious).

I'd say in order to learn an SLA, you must know an invocation of equivalent level. So you'd need to have an Invocation that is 5th level spell equivalent to be able to learn a 5th lvl SLA. Warlocks and DFAs get this 2 levels later than Wizards (1 later than Sorcerer) so it's all good.

For True Blood's Blade, you can make it so that one can channel Eldritch Blast damage (or Breath Weapon damage if you're a DFA) into the melee strike (or any other invocation).

wadledo
2009-04-21, 02:27 PM
Any other comments?
Please?

I'm not asking for much here people.:smallsigh: