(PrCls) Celestial Blooded

[Tiferet]

I've noticed lately that a lot of the WotC books have nifty prestige classes for sorcerers/wizards to take that slowly change your character into a templated race, like a half dragon, a half fiend and so on. It's always kinda irked me that there wern't any of these classes for fighters, so I decided to make one of my own! This is my first attempt at making a prestige classe, so go easy on me, please. :)

This class is losely based on things like Dragon Disciple and Fiend Blooded. (I don't know how to make the nifty chart, so bear with me, please.)

Celestial Blooded (Fighter Variant)

Requirements:
Race: Any humanoid (cannot already be a half-celestial)
Alignment: Any non-evil
Skills: Knowledge (Religion) 4 ranks, Knowledge (the planes) 4 ranks, Sense Motive 4 ranks
Feats: Servant of the Heavens, Knight of the Stars OR Favored of the Champions (one of the three if that's not totally clear, from the Book of Exalted Deeds) Power Attack, Weapon Focus (any)
Base Attack: +5

Class Benefits:
HD: d10
BA: As fighter
Saving Throws: As fighter
lv 1: Celesital Heritage (+1 Natural armor, Str. +2)
lv2: Bonus Feat, Celestial Heritage (smite evil 1/day, Daylight spell like ability 1/day)
lv3: Celstial Heritage (+2 saving throw bonus vs. poison, Dex +2)
lv4: Bonus Feat, Celestial Heritage (acid/cold/elec resistance 5)
lv5: Celestial Heritage (Darkvision of 60 ft., Con +2)
lv6:Bonus Feat, Celestial Heritage (Cha +2)
lv7: Celestial Heritage (+4 saving throw bonus vs. poison, acid/cold/elec resistance 10)
lv8: Bonus Feat, Celestial Heritage (Wis +2)
lv9: Wings (good fly, 60 ft.)
lv10: Bonus Feat, Celestial Apotheosis (Str +2, Con +2, Int +2, Wis +2, Cha +2, Spell Resistance equal to 10 + HD)

Bonus Feats are selected from the list of Fighter Bonus Feats, but Celestial Blooded class levels DO NOT stack with fighter levels for determining total fighter class level.

Thanks for looking over the class, and any comentary is appreciated.

Edit: Added the stuff I forgot. v thanks for pointing it out.

[endoperez]

The Fighters and Barbarians have a hard time entering this prestige class. Neither has any of the three prerequisite skills on their class skill list. Paladins have much easier time entering this class, which happens to work well with the idea of pious fighter transforming into something more than a man.

You should probably mention what book Servant of the Heavens, Knight of the Stars and Favored of the Champions are from.

Half-Dragon has LA of +3, Half-Celestial LA of +4, but that probably doesn't matter. Fighters are weaker than the spellcasters any way, so this won't hurt.

You also forgot the hit dice. It's probably D10, as a fighter.

[Tiferet]

The Fighters and Barbarians have a hard time entering this prestige class. Neither has any of the three prerequisite skills on their class skill list.

I thought about that, but I figured they should have some knowlege of the half-celestials before attempting to turn into one. The Fiend Blooded class from Liber Mortis requires knowledge the planes since you're turning into a half-fiend, so I thought it should be the same for turning into a half-celestial.
Any suggestions for other skill requirements would be useful. . . maybe replacing knowledge religion with 6 ranks of ride? But what should I change sense motive to?

[Valcrist]

I would skip on the skill req. and instead have them have to have a Good deity as a patron. Change the Weapon Focus (any) to Weapon Focus (Deities Favored Weapon).

Also I think a large part of the Half-Celestial +4 LA comes from their spells based on HD. So this should put the Half-Celestial on par with the Half-Dragon.

[The_Logic_Ninja]

If this class is identical to a fighter in every respect except it also gets the half-celestial goodies... what's it giving up? Not that a PrC that'll make fighters better will break the game, but this basically trades in one or two feats you wouldn't otherwise take for the Half-Celestial template minus SLAs over 10 levels. Consider giving them 3/4 BAB, or maybe half the bonus feats, or something, just so it's not an obvious "who wouldn't take this?" choice--of course, even if it is strictly better than a fighter in every way, well, that doesn't make it game-breaking. :P

[Tiferet]

. . . you've got a very good point, and I feel kinda silly for not noticing it before. Since most people won't take a fighter prestige class if it dosne't give full base attack, I think I'll cut down on the bonus feats. Maybe only two, or since they get something at every level, maybe none at all.

[The_Logic_Ninja]

None at all will make it completely unappealing for fighters. 2 should do, and you may want to add in flight (Celestial Heritage: wings) or a bigger NA increase or something to compensate.

Edit: another option would be to require the ability to cast, say, 1st-level divine spells, similar to what Dragon Disciple does. That way fighters would have to dip cleric and lose something, or dip a more significant amount of paladin (of course, a Paladin 4/Fighter X is perfect for this class, getting CHA to saves and with the Divine Might feat to damage, and then a bunch of bonus feats and CHA increases).

[Tiferet]

I think I'll go with two bonus feats. I'd rather not have a spellcasting requirement, that way a player who dosen't like to multi-classing could take the class as a fighter.

[The_Logic_Ninja]

This should all help with further PrC design. Comparing it to what classes would normally have at each level, comparing it to other PrCs (to Dragon Disciple was a good notion), and when setting requirements, consider 1) Do you want characters to have to "waste" resources to get in? i.e. requiring "useless" feats, skills characters wouldn't normally have, etc; 2) who can meet the requirements when? Make sure that everyone you want to be able to take the class can do so, and that everyone you *don't* want to can't; consider who can get in when and what everyone who can get in gets out of it compared to normal progression.

[Valcrist]

Comparing it to what classes would normally have at each level, comparing it to other PrCs (to Dragon Disciple was a good notion), and when setting requirements, consider 1) Do you want characters to have to "waste" resources to get in? i.e. requiring "useless" feats, skills characters wouldn't normally have, etc; 2) who can meet the requirements when? Make sure that everyone you want to be able to take the class can do so, and that everyone you *don't* want to can't; consider who can get in when and what everyone who can get in gets out of it compared to normal progression.

Most of that is covered in the DMG p.197.

I've always hated the way most Prestige Classes force you to give up feats, since you only ever get seven (and fighters only get fighter feats).

How about you just keep one of the skill requirements (my suggestion would be Knowledge: Religion to keep with the holy warrior feel ). At four ranks any paladin should be able to easily meet the requirements but would still have to use up his feats. On the other hand, the fighter could use his feats for the requirements, but would have to devote the lions share of his skill points (one every level, which for the average fighter is probably half of his skill points) on a cross-class skill.

[martyboy74]

I'd add this to the requirements: No being a celedtial. Otherwise, you have a half-celestial celestial! ???