Making the Green Star Adept viable

[Eldan]

So, I like the idea of the Green Star Adept. It has pretty cool fluff, but the execution is not all that great, as several people have noted over in the worst PrC thread.

What does the Green Star Adept need to become a useful Gish Class? First thing that comes to mind is replacing the level ten "becomes a construct" with "becomes a living construct", so you can keep your con score and still profit a little from healing magic.

What else should be done? One idea I had was making it into a maneuver-using class by, perhaps, giving it a handful of Stone Dragon/Iron Hand maneuvers, but I'm not sure that this would be necessary or even all that balanced. Other ideas?

[Edwin]

Full BAB would be an idea. :smallsmile:

[Wizard of the Coat]

It's generally considered bad because it fails in two areas it claims to be somewhat competent at. Casting and melee. There are better combination classes. If either it had full base attack, or if it had a better spellcasting array, like losing only 2 levels or so, it might be acceptable for a warrior to take if he wanted some arcana or a spellcaster because they wanted to live forever.

[Mongoose87]

Maybe give it full Bab, better HD or full casting, or some combination thereof.

[Boci]

Remove the rubbish about needing to each the green star metal to advance a level. Full BAB and retaining a con score should be okay. I do not personally think manouvers fit the concept but it could be done.

[Tyndmyr]

Either return the con score, or remove the stat gimping from it.

Then, either give it full/damn close to full casting or full BaB, depending on which direction you wish to go with it.

[Eldan]

Right. So, Full BAB, living construct, 8/10 spellcasting, d10 HD. Seems fair enough. And yeah, spending money for what is basically a fluff thing seems stupid.

[PhoenixRivers]

If you're going full BAB, living construct and d10 HD, I'd go with 7/10 casting. Still enough to hit level 9 by 20, but it's gonna be a bit of a sacrifice for the immunities, HP, and BAB.

[Optimystik]

Be a Warforged gish. Paint yourself green. Drink paint chips and donate some money to your favorite charity every level. Profit!
Insert "???" wherever you feel like

[Foryn Gilnith]

The feat tax for unarmored body can even emulate the GSA entrance prerequisites!

[ErrantX]

I'd make it a full BAB class, good Fort, d8 HD, 8/10 casting, make there only be one entry fee for the space chicken nuggets to enter the class (Mage of the Arcane Order charges you for this sort of thing), and the capstone gives you the Construct (living construct) type. This way you get immunities but you also keep your Con score. Or...

Remove the spellcasting entirely, d12 HD, and give it a maneuver progression like an Eternal Blade or something. Bump it's skills and give it a few specialty stances/strikes based on what it is.

-X

[Mr. Mud]

Definately full BAB, and swap to a Living Construct. But Even those won't make it all that great, IMHO.

[Tyndmyr]

Hmm, they'd make it viable. We don't need to make it the best class ever, but being able to be healed, take some hits, and hit things is a good start.

[Mongoose87]

I'd make it a full BAB class, good Fort, d8 HD, 8/10 casting, make there only be one entry fee for the space chicken nuggets to enter the class (Mage of the Arcane Order charges you for this sort of thing), and the capstone gives you the Construct (living construct) type. This way you get immunities but you also keep your Con score. Or...

-X

Wouldn't this make it a little on the OP side?

[Foryn Gilnith]

Wouldn't this make it a little on the OP side?

Compared to playing a warforged and taking an existing gish build? No, not really.
PS: Unless warforged is OP too, which is a plausible theory. But the existance of a rules-valid alternative implies that the "over" part of overpowered is iffy.

[Eldan]

Yeah... at this stage, it's just a class which transforms casters into warforged gishes.

[ErrantX]

Yeah... at this stage, it's just a class which transforms casters into warforged gishes.

Correction: Green warforged gishes.

As far as being OP, I don't think so. Abjurant Champion exists as a huge roll in every single gish build out there, or nearly so provided it has arcane magic. I think at -2 CL, it's fine.

-X

[Optimystik]

Yeah... at this stage, it's just a class which transforms casters into warforged gishes.

If only it were that good. At least Warforged gishes can level without drinking expensive paint, taking penalties to DEX, 3/4 BAB and half-casting, losing their CON score completely and being immune to magical healing.

[Eldan]

No, I mean, after the changes suggested in this thread, they pretty much are warforged gishes. Perhaps not even as good as a warforged gish, since they lose whatever class abilities you'd get from your gish PrC otherwise.

[Cieyrin]

If only it were that good. At least Warforged gishes can level without drinking expensive paint, taking penalties to DEX, 3/4 BAB and half-casting, losing their CON score completely and being immune to magical healing.

So they're green warforged gishes with Warforged Juggernaut levels. <_<;;

[taltamir]

now that we have made GSA viable... how about making a lich viable? +4 LA is terrible and never worth it.

[Enlong]

Be a Warforged gish. Paint yourself green. Drink paint chips and donate some money to your favorite charity every level. Profit!
Insert "???" wherever you feel like

Dude, that's like saying "be an unarmed Swordsage". That's like the Godwin's Law of class fixing.

[Cieyrin]

now that we have made GSA viable... how about making a lich viable? +4 LA is terrible and never worth it.

Go be a Dread Necro. There, done.

[Deth Muncher]

In before Lightning Warrior jokes.

EDIT: Anyway, I don't think you should get rid of the starmetal. Because honestly, that's kinda the whole point of the class: you come in contact with weird substance, you get cool powers. Like legacy weapons.

[taltamir]

In before Lightning Warrior jokes.

EDIT: Anyway, I don't think you should get rid of the starmetal. Because honestly, that's kinda the whole point of the class: you come in contact with weird substance, you get cool powers. Like legacy weapons.

since you have to actively quest for it, then it should be a reward in of itself...

To avoid losing the flavor (because a warforged gish is better)...

1. Make the starmetal extremely rare (it is by description)... and tough to aquire.
2. Living construct
3. GSA is a transformation template, not a PrC. You have no LA, you don't take levels in it. Instead, each ritual makes you more greenstarish.

There, problem solved. It is all bonuses and no penalties... BUT the bonuses require that you work hard for them in game... every other greenstar adept is out for your life, and the material is extremely rare and only given out by the DM.

[Eldan]

Hmm. What about a series of templates, then? The idea is nice, really. The first one could well be LA+0, there are some like that. If you want to become more construct-like, you take more of them, for more immunities and stat boni. Nice idea for a project, I'd say.

[oxinabox]

every other greenstar adept is out for your life,

Thgis makes me think that you should be able to phiscally remove part of the starmetal from the corpes of dead greenstar adepts.
Maybe some of it is depositit5ed on the the teeth? or bones?
then you could be handed down by other adepts who want the eat your teeth ,,,:smallsigh:

[lord_khaine]

Thats actualy a pretty cool idea, it would lead to a highlander like scenario where GSA was hunting each other down so they could eat their starmetal core and obtain their power.

[Eldan]

It would still lead to a single prestige class dominating pretty much the entire campaign. If they are rare (and they should be, since star metal is), the DM either has to find excuses for other starmetal collectors to show up around levelling time, or the player can't level up in his PrC. I'm much more in favour of a strong infusion of starmetal to start the transmutation (i.e. at level one of the PrC) and then a very long, gradual process that doesn't require more star metal.

[lord_khaine]

That was to the idea of making GSA a template, and you could center an entire campaign around it.

[Eldan]

Right. Then it would work.

How about, for more diversity, we make several templates? One of my campaign worlds had the idea of five stars corresponding to the five elements(Air, Earth, Water, Fire, Aether). We could make five templates (or five groups of templates) from that.

So, judging by the warforged, WotC seems to think that the living construct subtype is about balanced as LA+0 (or at least balanced against other +0 races with the added benefits a warforged has, namely item components, free armor and attribute bonus/mali).

[Foryn Gilnith]

now that we have made GSA viable... how about making a lich viable? +4 LA is terrible and never worth it.

Level up to level 21 without LA. Become a lich. Fast-track to demilich. Be happy. Watch as pun-pun, who has been powerful for many more levels than you, comes to destroy you.

[Deth Muncher]

Or, there's the whole thing of:

DM: You find a huge meteorite of green metal.
PC: So I can use that to become a GSA?
DM: Sure.
PC: But how the hell am I supposed to level up after without this dominating the whole campaign and ruining your story?
DM: Uh...there's enough.
PC: Enough for all 10 levels of the PrC?
DM: Sure.
PC: That's a huge meteorite! Didn't you ever take Astro 101 in college? Don't you realize the damage a meteorite could cause?
DM: ...your character died from radiation. It was actually a meteorite of uranium.
PC:...uranium isn't green...
DM:...

[Boci]

Level up to level 21 without LA. Become a lich. Fast-track to demilich. Be happy. Watch as pun-pun, who has been powerful for many more levels than you, comes to destroy you.

I thought pun-pun only exists for 6 seconds.

[Fax Celestis]

Problem with GSA is that it shouldn't really be a PrC. It should really be, like, a collection of grafts.

[Deth Muncher]

Problem with GSA is that it shouldn't really be a PrC. It should really be, like, a collection of grafts.

Then you know what you must do, Fax.

[Eldan]

Also a nice idea. I think I like the graft idea best. I'll see what I can come up with for that...

[Greenfaun]

Ooh, I like the grafts idea.

Other than that, my opinion would be that the big green galoots shouldn't just be gishes, they should be more unusual.

So what abouttaking inspiration from golems? The fluff is, essentially, turning oneself into a golem by eating magic rocks. Golems aren't badass simply because of the construct type, they're badass because so much stuff doesn't kill them. So what about making the GSA a class where you gain such awesome golem-like passive defenses that losing half your spellcasting progression seems worth it? F'rinstance, how about DR 5/magic and adamantine, right off the bat, which rises to DR 15/magic and adamantine by the end? Add spell resistance, rising to spell immunity like a golem. Maybe throw in some energy resistances, full fortification, etc. I dunno, I feel like I'm bad at balancing in the 3.5 world, but the right strong defenses could be interesting.

I think it still wouldn't be an optimizer-friendly class, but there are characters for whom it would make sense, or just be fun. The idea of another gish class (now with funky space-rocks!) kinda bores me.

[Eldan]

Alternatively grafts:

Green Star Hands: +2 Strenght, unarmed attack deals damage as if two steps larger.

Green Star Skin: +2 natural armor, light fortification.

Green Star Heart: +2 Con, gain the living construct subtype. You can only use this if you have at least two other green star grafts.

[Mongoose87]

Green Eggs and Ham - +4 morale bonus to rhyming checks.

[PhoenixRivers]

Alternately, leave it almost as is.

Give it 2 more levels of caster progression, allow it to gank con.

Addition to the construct type:

Gain bonus HP = Class level x HD.

A level 20 character with 10 levels of GSA? +200 hp.

[hamishspence]

Maybe make the material both common (fairly) and highly dangerous as well as highly rewarding.

Warpstone from Warhammer might make for an interesting way of working with Green Meteorite material.

[Optimystik]

It would still lead to a single prestige class dominating pretty much the entire campaign. If they are rare (and they should be, since star metal is), the DM either has to find excuses for other starmetal collectors to show up around levelling time, or the player can't level up in his PrC. I'm much more in favour of a strong infusion of starmetal to start the transmutation (i.e. at level one of the PrC) and then a very long, gradual process that doesn't require more star metal.

The problem with that idea is it's backwards. PCs don't have as much dough to throw around when starting a PrC.

Of course, you could have the PC take a huge starmetal infusion for cheap early on, and then pay for "inhibitors" as he gains levels to fully harness its abilities. Alternatively, have him take out a loan and make payments.


Thats actualy a pretty cool idea, it would lead to a highlander like scenario where GSA was hunting each other down so they could eat their starmetal core and obtain their power.

If only the bloody class was powerful enough to warrant that kind of craze. It would be like a bunch of commonerswizards fighting over which one gets to be a monk.


Problem with GSA is that it shouldn't really be a PrC. It should really be, like, a collection of grafts.

You've hit upon a very cool idea here. I think a pseudo-PrC - take feats, X, Y, and Z and then gain a capstone ability - is much more fitting for this class.

[taltamir]

Thgis makes me think that you should be able to phiscally remove part of the starmetal from the corpes of dead greenstar adepts.
Maybe some of it is depositit5ed on the the teeth? or bones?
then you could be handed down by other adepts who want the eat your teeth ,,,:smallsigh:

well, not exactly... every other one is out for your life until you complete the transformation, then you don't NEED any more starmetal. Because until you complete it you can still die of age...

Although, you could say that its not just any star metal... that the original bit was something unique, and that the ONLY source for new starmetal is the corpses of previously tranformed people (who, via their tranformation, actually increase the total amount... say, to twice what they consumed)


Problem with GSA is that it shouldn't really be a PrC. It should really be, like, a collection of grafts.

This is a lot like my suggestion...

[Fax Celestis]

This is a lot like my suggestion...

It may well be. I didn't really read the rest of the thread.