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Thant
2010-03-31, 08:53 AM
...for my friend who wants to play a Transmuter in our new campaign. After a bit of research he opted for a Zern character which is way overpowered to start with, so after a few advices from other playgrounders I decided to go with a racial class and an ECL of 3 (but I'm not so sure for the latter).

I'm not that experienced in class building/balancing so I feel a bit lost, but I still want to let him play this character because of his great RP in some of our previous games, and this should come as some kind of reward for all that effort :smallsmile: But on the other hand I don't want him breaking the campaign in half either :smalltongue:

This is the build so far (v.1.2):



Zern (Medium Monstrous Humanoid)

Racial Traits


+6 Str, +6 Dex, +8 Con, +4 Int, +2 Wis, +0 Cha: Cruel and amoral to the extreme in their never ending search for biological perfection, the Zern are masters of their own bodies, unmatched in their malevolence and intellect.

Monstrous Humanoid: Zern are not subject to spells or effects that affect humanoids only, such as charm person or dominate person.

Medium: As Medium creatures, Zern have no special bonuses or penalties due to their size.

Zern base land speed is 30 feet.

Darkvision out to 60 feet.

Spell-like abilities: As a zern advances in levels, he gains spell-like abilities as indicated on the table below. Spell caster level is equal to his Hit Dice (minimum 1st). The save DCs are Charisma-based.

{table=head]Level|Spell-like ability
2nd|At will - reduce person
4th|1/day - gaseous form
7th|1/day - baleful polymorph
[/table]


Zern have a spell resistance equal to 10 + class levels.

+6 Natural Armor: A Zern's evershifting skin and muscles can quickly reform and adapt to provide protection from any sort of attacks.

Zern have a +2 racial bonus on Use Rope checks that involve binding.

Automatic Languages: Common, Zern. Bonus Languages: Draconic, Dwarven.

Favored Class: Transmuter.

Level Adjustment: +3


Zern Mutator

Adventures:

Characteristics:

Alignment:

Religion:

Background:

Races:

Other Classes:

Role:


Requirements

Race: Zern

Special: Level 1st


Game Rule Information
Zern Mutators have the following game statistics.

Abilities: Strength is an ideal ability for a Zern Mutator, augmenting his melee prowess. Intelligence is very important as it determines how powerful a spell a zern mutator can cast, how many spells he can cast, and how hard those spells are to resist and it also determines the number of bonus damage zern deals with its Warping Energy attack. Dexterity provides better defense and bonuses on ranged attacks. Constitution upgrades the Zern Mutator's toughness.

Alignment: Any evil (usually neutral evil)

Hit Die: d8

Class Skills: The Zern Mutators class skills (& the key ability for each skill) are Craft (Flesh Sculpting) (Int), Escape Artist (Dex), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Listen (Wis), Spot (Wis) and Use Rope (Dex)

Skill Points at 1st level: (2 + Int modifier) x 4

Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier


Table 1-1: Zern Mutator
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort Save|Reflex Save|Will Save|Special|Spells per Day
1st|+1|+0|+2|+2|Malleable Form 2, Transmuter-casting|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
2nd|+2|+0|+3|+3|Warping Energy 1d6, Shifting Guise
3rd|+3|+1|+3|+3|Malleable Form +1, Immunity (poison)
4th|+4|+1|+4|+4|Warping Energy 2d6, Transmutation Affinity|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
5th|+5|+1|+4|+4|Malleable Form +1, Immunity (stuning),
6th|+6/+1|+2|+5|+5|Warping Energy 3d6, Adaptive Defenses
7th|+7/+2|+2|+5|+5|Malleable Form +1, Immunity (paralysis)|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class
8th|+8/+3|+2|+6|+6| Warping Energy 4d6, Fast Healing 5
[/table]


Class Features

Weapons and Armor Proficiency: Zern are proficient with the club, dagger, heavy crossbow, light crossbow, quarterstaff and shortspears. They are also proficient with light armor.

Transmutation-casting: The zern are natural transmuters and they pickup knowledge related to this school of magic with great ease. However their close specialization also heavily interferes with their studies in other fields of magic. Beginning at 1st level and every three levels thereafter you gain an arcane spellcasting level as if you were a wizard with a focused specialty in transmutation, except that you don't gain any of the bonus spell slots usually granted by focused specialty starting ability. In addition you do not gain any other benefit a character of a wizard class would have gained (bonus metamagic or item creation feats, familiar or familiar special abilities, and so on).

Malleable Form (Ex): A zern can rapidly alter its metabolism, internal structers, organs, and other bodily systems to cope with a variety of environments and situations. As a swift action, a zern can gain benefits of one of his selected malleable forms. Each benefit has unlimited duration. Generally, a zern remains in one form, and then slips into another one as the situation dictates. When a zern uses a swift action to gain one of these forms, it loses benefits of the form it previously held. You start with two malleable forms at 1st level and chose one additional form at every odd number level after that.

Adrenal Surge: The zern's upper-body muscles bulge and grow with enhanced power. It gains a +2 bonus on attack rolls and a +4 bonus on damage rolls. including those using its warping energy ability.

*Athletic Augment: The zern's whole body shifts, his height improves, its limbs become elongated and slender and its hands and feet allow for a far better grip. The zern now can take 10 on any climb, jump or swim check as well as any check that involves running.

Boneless Form: The zern's body seems to melt into a puddle of goo as its bones liquefy. It gains a +8 bonus on Escape Artist checks, which increases to +16 on checks made to squeeze through a tight area.

*Heightened Senses: The zern's eyes grow, his nasal cavity expands and his lobes widen. It gains a +2 competence bonus to Initiative, his darkvision range increases by 60 feet and he gains Scent.

Impervious Hide: The zern's skin shifts into plates of armor. It gains +4 bonus to AC and DR5/piercing.

Size Shift: The zern can shift to Large or Small size. A Large zern gains a +2 bonus to Strength, and it's space and reach increase to 10 feet; one that shifts to Small takes a -2 Strength penalty. The zern gains the standard size bonuses or penalties on attacks, Hide checks, and so forth.

Speed Burst: The zern's legs lengthen and its lower body muscles bulge and grow. Its base speed increases by 30 feet.

* - new malleable forms.

Warping Energy (Su): At 2nd level a zern can produce energy that rends and tears at its opponents flesh. As a standard action, a zern can use this ability to make a melee or a ranged attack that deals 1d6 points of damage plus the zern's Intelligence modifier. The ranged version of this attack can reach to 120 feet and has no range increment. This damage increases to 2d6 at 4th level, 3d6 at level six, to a maximum of 4d6 points of damage at level 8th.

Shifting Guise (Ex): As the alter self spell; at will; caster level is equal to zern's monstrous HD. A zern can choose to shift into a different monstrous humanoid form or any humanoid form.

Immunities (Ex): Their malleable biology and advanced body chemistry allows the zern to rapidly adapt their metabolism and repel many forms of attack. At 3rd level the zern gains immunity to all sorts of poison, at 5th level it becomes immune to all forms of stunning and at 7th level it is no longer subject to paralysis and similar effects.

Transmutation Affinity (Ex): Zern are so in tune with transmutation based spells that they can cast them to a greater effect almost effortlessly. As of 4th level the save DCs of any transmutation spells or spell-like abilities used by a zern increase by 4.

Adaptive Defenses (Ex): A zern's ever-changing physiology allows it to shrug off effects that attack its endurance or disrupt its bodily functions. Beginning at 6th level, zern is immune to all spells and effects that require a Fortitude save unless the effect also works on objects or is harmless. A zern can choose to allow an effect that requires a Fortitude save to affect it.

Fast Healing 5 (Ex): As of 8th level zern's body becomes so adaptable that it can quickly recover from many harmful effects, close open wounds, repair internal damage and recuperate from severe injury. He is now capable to heal almost instantly and regains 5 hit points per round. This does not include hit points lost due to starvation, thirst or suffocation and it does not allow a zern to regrow lost body parts.


Table 1-2: Spells Known
{table=head]Level|0th|1st|2nd|3rd|4th
1st|3|2|-|-|-
2nd|4|2|-|-|-
3rd|4|2|1|-|-
4th|4|3|1|-|-
5th|4|3|2|1|-
6th|4|3|3|2|-
7th|4|4|3|2|1
8th|4|4|3|3|2
[/table]


I wish to add some more malleable forms for the sake of diversity (and for the sake of fun of course) so any input there is also welcomed.

Also is it ok in your opinion to add him some racial weapons/items that he and I had in mind (again considering game balance)? This is what we had in mind:

Zern Shortblade instead of short swords (a bit altered stats, nothing special - less weight, 2d3 for dmg instead of d6 and +1 threat range) and an item that we call


Rod-spear of Assimilation

{table=head]Cost|Dmg|Critical|Range Increment|Weight|Type|Special
n/a|2d4|19-20/x2|20 ft.|6 lb.|Piercing|masterwork, clone trait*
[/table]

*clone trait - we didn't flash this one all out but essentially it would allow the user to initiate a grapple check with the weapon after a successful touch attack. The user then must successfully maintain the grapple for the next 3 rounds in order for the rod to function (it literally must stay in the target). In each round after the contact the rod would would give out some sort of information about the target before finally assimilating one of the targets racial traits into itself for later use and research by the Zern.

Something like:

1st round - determine the gender, height, weight, racial type/subtypes of the target

2nd round - determine the number of racial abilities the target has, like senses, stat bonuses, Ex/Su/Sp abilities and the like

3rd round - store the information about one selected ability inside the rod; if the user wants to assimilate another trait from the same target the process must be repeated

I'm not sure on what basis should I determine the max amount of traits the rod can carry and whether or not this method can be applied on dead creatures.

I also wanted to add a % "failure" chance if the target is suffering from some disease or negative effect (confusion, level loss etc) in a way that instead of the desired ability the negative effect would be transferred to the rod without the user knowing for some added fun :smallwink: maybe he can detect the defect with a Use Magic Device check or if the player notices that there is less "assimilation slots" left in the rod than before or something similar.

As I said it need some more polishing before this item is good to go :smallsmile:

So any comment, criticism or idea are welcomed!