[3.5 PrC, PEACH] This class sacrifices flavour for power

[Flickerdart]

Master of the Menagerie

It is well known that a familiar represents the apex of an arcanist's power, though many forsake it for meagre and questionable abilities. Only the most learned and wise mages have undertaken strengthening the bonds with their familiars. These are known as masters of the menagerie - wizards and sorcerers able to call upon hordes of magical creatures to do their bidding. Hexblades rarely pursue this class due to its lack of focus on combat power, and it offers little to tempt most Dread Necromancers.

HD: d6

Requirements
Skills: Knowledge (arcana) 8 ranks
Feat: Bonded FamiliarPHBII

{table=head]Level | Base Attack Bonus | Fort Save | Ref Save | Will Save | Special | Spellcasting
1st | +0 | +0 | +0 | +2 | Familiar progression, menagerie, backlash evasion | -
2nd | +1 | +0 | +0 | +3 | Bonus feat | +1 level of existing class
3rd | +1 | +1 | +1 | +3 | Telepathic link, roam | +1 level of existing class
4th | +2 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Bonus feat | +1 level of existing class
5th | +2 | +1 | +1 | +4 | Improved backlash evasion, recall familiar | +1 level of existing class
6th | +3 | +2 | +2 | +5 | Bonus feat | +1 level of existing class
7th | +3 | +2 | +2 | +5 | Spell resistance, spell flock | +1 level of existing class
8th | +4 | +2 | +2 | +6 | Bonus feat | +1 level of existing class
9th | +4 | +3 | +3 | +6 | Walk among them| +1 level of existing class
10th | +5 | +3 | +3 | +7 | Bonus feat, backlash immunity, grand menagerie| -[/table]

Class skills (2+Int modifier per level): Concentration (Con), Craft (Int), Decipher Script (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Knowledge (all skills, taken individually) (Int), Listen (Wis), Perform (animal handling) (Cha), Profession (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis) and Use Magic Device (Cha).

Weapon and Armour Proficiencies: Masters of the menagerie gain proficiency with the whip and the net, but not armour or shields.

Familiar Progression: A master of the menagerie counts all class levels when determining what abilities his familiar have, even if those levels would not normally advance the familiar. For example, the familiar of a sorcerer 5/fighter 2/master of the menagerie 1 would have abilities like that of an 8th level sorcerer's.

Menagerie: A master of the menagerie can seamlessly shift between familiar bonds. A master of the menagerie may designate as many familiars as he has class levels. As a full round action, he may change which of these familiars are summoned. He must still spend 100gp and 24 hours to perform the ritual of summoning a familiar in order to have access to it.

Backlash Evasion (Ex): If a master of the menagerie succeeds the fortitude save caused by the death of a familiar, he does not lose experience points. He must still wait a year and a day to summon another familiar (though he may replace it with another from his familiar pool in the meantime).

Bonus feat: At every even level, a master of the menagerie chooses a feat from the master of the menagerie bonus feat list. The master of the menagerie must still meet the prerequisites for the feat. Every familiar in his menagerie at the time gains a bonus fighter feat or a [monster] feat. These feats are not gained retroactively for creatures that are added to the menagerie at a later time.

Bonus Feat List:
Stitched Flesh FamiliarLM, Celestial FamiliarBoED, Planar FamiliarPlH, Spell-Linked FamiliarPHBII, Shadowform FamiliarCoR, Undead FamiliarDr280, Wedded to the LightDr358, Token FamiliarDr280, Improved FamiliarPHB, Extra FamiliarDr280, Enspell FamiliarDr280, Construct FamiliarLDr280, Lurking FamiliarPHBII, Dragon FamiliarDrac, Combat FamiliarPHBII

Telepathic Link (Su): A 3rd level or higher master of the menagerie can communicate with his familiars telepathically instead of empathically. A familiar with a low intelligence score may still be unable to adequately describe a situation.

Roam (Ex): Familiars of a 3rd level master of the menagerie that move further than 1 mile away from their master retain the abilities granted to them. For every mile beyond the first, reduce their master's effective level by one (starting with most recent levels) for the purpose of determining what abilities the familiar has access to.

Improved Backlash Evasion (Ex): A 5th level master of the menagerie only loses 100 experience points per character level when he fails the fortitude save after losing a familiar. He may summon a new one after a month instead of a year and a day.

Recall Familiar (Sp): A 5th level master of the menagerie may, as a standard action, call back any number of his familiars, who appear immediately adjacent to him. This is a conjuration [teleportation] ability.

Spell Flock (Su): A 7th level master of the menagerie can designate additional familiars as targets for a touch-range spell he casts, so long as he is touching all of them at the time of casting. The master of the menagerie must expend additional instances of that spell prepared, or additional spell slots of that level, in proportion to the amount of additional targets affected. For example, a sorcerer/master of the menagerie casting shocking grasp can designate his hummingbird, his beguiler and his imp to deliver it. He must use three 1st level spell slots in order to do this.

Spell Resistance: The familiars of a 7th level master of the menagerie have spell resistance equal to 10 + their master's character level. This spell resistance does not affect spells cast on the familiar by the master of the menagerie.

Walk Among Them (Sp): A 9th level master of the menagerie may, as a move action, switch places with any of his familiars, as through the benign transposition spell.

Backlash Immunity (Ex): A 10th level master of the menagerie loses no experience points when one of his familiars is slain, and must only wait 24 hours before he can summon a new familiar.

Grand Menagerie (Su): Once per day, as a standard action, a 10th level master of the menagerie may summon his entire menagerie of familiars. Each familiar in the menagerie gains access to the master of the menagerie's casting ability, though they can only cast as many levels of spells per turn as the master of the menagerie may cast normally (up to 9 levels of spells per turn). This effect lasts for as long as the master of the menagerie concentrates, up to 1 round/caster level.

Playing a Master of the Menagerie
You may be a spellcaster, but the resources you have available to you are a lot different than those of a traditional mage. Incidentally, a wizard who is overly fond of fireballs is powerless before your menagerie. However, the deceptive nature of a familiar means that you can act covertly, springing a sudden spell on enemies when they least expect it. For this reason, many masters of the menagerie are beguilers or bards with the Obtain Familiar feat, who prefer such tactics to a fair fight. Many masters of the menagerie serve as spies or assassins for hire, but just as many can be travelling performers, scouts or adventurers from exotic lands.

Combat
You will most likely want to position your familiars throughout a potential battlefield, charging them with touch spells and springing them upon your enemies when they least expect it. Your familiars can help your allies flank or deliver them touch-range buffs. You may want to consider buying a few wands for the familiars that can activate them, to increase your party's spellcasting power. As you grow in power, your familiars become more expendable and at the same time more resilient, so don't be afraid to include them in the area of a fireball.

Advancement
Many of your bonus feats will go towards Extra Familiar, to increase the size of your menagerie. However, don't neglect increasing their individual power - four Gold Dragon familiars are much more impressive than five bats. You will want to dedicate your spell knowledge to touch-range or buff spells that you can share with your familiars. Unless you secretly want to DM and/or make your DM angry at you, the Leadership feat and the summon monster line of spells are probably not for you. Even though they are cross-class, you may want to invest in Hide and Move Silently in order to make your familiars more effective scouts.

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

Don't know about the class (it's early morning here...not the best for critiquing), but the threat title made me chuckle heartily. Great reference. :smallbiggrin:

[Milskidasith]

Lots of imps + lots of items to UMD = painful.

[DrWeird]

grand menagerie

I laughed at the (possibly unintentionally) Aladdin reference this class made for me.

In any case, the serious stuff. I had something like this a little while back with one of my players, only slightly different; as for the levels of spellcasting granted, I would break it up into every other level, considering how crazy you can get with the minions combinations at work here (possibly even gaining bonus minions for a high ability score? Wisdom? Charisma? Not a whole 'nother pool, but possibly 1 for every +4?). I can imagine that in the scope of pooling and binding minions, he begins to neglect at his other studies not directly tied to them. In addition, have you considered giving him some crafty summon monster spell-like abilities for creatures of the same types as your minions, a reference to the great effort that goes into mastering so many permanently (sort of) bound creatures to you? I would suggest implementing both these two options if you consider one or the other.

Also, if a feat doesn't provide it, give him a special boost to fortitude to resist the loss of experience at lower levels.

[Milskidasith]

I laughed at the (possibly unintentionally) Aladdin reference this class made for me.

In any case, the serious stuff. I had something like this a little while back with one of my players, only slightly different; as for the levels of spellcasting granted, I would break it up into every other level, considering how crazy you can get with the minions combinations at work here (possibly even gaining bonus minions for a high ability score? Wisdom? Charisma? Not a whole 'nother pool, but possibly 1 for every +4?). I can imagine that in the scope of pooling and binding minions, he begins to neglect at his other studies not directly tied to them. In addition, have you considered giving him some crafty summon monster spell-like abilities for creatures of the same types as your minions, a reference to the great effort that goes into mastering so many permanently (sort of) bound creatures to you? I would suggest implementing both these two options if you consider one or the other.

Also, if a feat doesn't provide it, give him a special boost to fortitude to resist the loss of experience at lower levels.

While this is obviously a joke, sacrificing five caster levels worth of power, even for flavour, is never going to be worth it unless it offers massive benefits. This really doesn't except for UMDing a lot of stuff at once.

[DrWeird]

While this is obviously a joke, sacrificing five caster levels worth of power, even for flavour, is never going to be worth it unless it offers massive benefits. This really doesn't except for UMDing a lot of stuff at once.

Argh, you caught me :smalltongue: I thought I could slip by with filling it with a lot of stuff.

The summon monster spell-like abilities I feel are a good feature for this one, though; of course, that may just be me and the insomnia talking.

[Fizban]

The wording for the Menagerie ability seems to contradict the rest of the class. It says that you only have one familiar "summoned" at a time, but the rest of the abilities assume you have multiple familiars active. Did you mean you only gain the miscellaneous benefits from one familiar at a time? Or since you mention Extra Familiar at the end, did you just assume everyone would spend a bunch of bonus feats on that? (I'm also pretty sure Extra Familiar has been printed in ECS).

Grand Menagerie (Su): Once per day, as a standard action, a 10th level master of the menagerie may summon his entire menagerie of familiars, teleporting them to his side. Each familiar gains the ability to cast spells from those available to their master expending prepared spells or slots as normal, with caster level and effects as if they had been cast by the master. They do not need to make proper verbal or somatic components, and do not require material components costing less than 1gp, but they do have to substitute other noises and motions in order to cast spells. The familiars together cannot cast more total levels of spells per round than the highest level of spell their master can cast, maximum 9 per round; use the adjusted spell slot levels for spells that include metamagic. This effect lasts for as long as the master of the menagerie concentrates, up to 1 round/caster level.

^I think that clarifies most of it.

Spell Flock is very interesting. Depending on how many familiars you have (see above), it could be a serious number of extra spells per round, but only touch range spells delivered by your familiars, and only when you have all of them next to you before casting. Those conditions are probably enough to make it okay, but being able to drop 3+ save or dies on a single target in one round with only your own resources is pretty hefty. I do like the image of a flock of glowing birds dive bombing the boss. Actually I'm not sure why you'd want the 10th ability when you've got this.

And seriously? A familiar based class and you make no mention of Imbue Familiar With Spell Ability? That's one of the biggest reasons to keep a familiar: tasty tasty "quickened" spells for a 6th level slot on the side.

[Zaydos]

Me I was wondering about this class + Share Spell; Menagerie and Spell Flock seems to indicate that it is supposed to be shared with only one familiar at a time but nothing directly mentions the ability.
11+ familiars + Enspell Familiar + (Draconic) Polymorph = :smallbiggrin: Instant army.

[Flickerdart]

The wording for the Menagerie ability seems to contradict the rest of the class. It says that you only have one familiar "summoned" at a time, but the rest of the abilities assume you have multiple familiars active. Did you mean you only gain the miscellaneous benefits from one familiar at a time? Or since you mention Extra Familiar at the end, did you just assume everyone would spend a bunch of bonus feats on that? (I'm also pretty sure Extra Familiar has been printed in ECS).

Yes, I expected people to grab Extra Familiar with the bonus feats. Originally, I was going to have the class grant extra familiars, but since a feat already did that I figured might as well do it this way.



Grand Menagerie (Su): Once per day, as a standard action, a 10th level master of the menagerie may summon his entire menagerie of familiars, teleporting them to his side. Each familiar gains the ability to cast spells from those available to their master expending prepared spells or slots as normal, with caster level and effects as if they had been cast by the master. They do not need to make proper verbal or somatic components, and do not require material components costing less than 1gp, but they do have to substitute other noises and motions in order to cast spells. The familiars together cannot cast more total levels of spells per round than the highest level of spell their master can cast, maximum 9 per round; use the adjusted spell slot levels for spells that include metamagic. This effect lasts for as long as the master of the menagerie concentrates, up to 1 round/caster level.

^I think that clarifies most of it.

That is better wording, thanks.



Spell Flock is very interesting. Depending on how many familiars you have (see above), it could be a serious number of extra spells per round, but only touch range spells delivered by your familiars, and only when you have all of them next to you before casting. Those conditions are probably enough to make it okay, but being able to drop 3+ save or dies on a single target in one round with only your own resources is pretty hefty. I do like the image of a flock of glowing birds dive bombing the boss. Actually I'm not sure why you'd want the 10th ability when you've got this.

Spell Flock still only affects the number of familiars you can have summoned, which will probably be three or four. Grand Menagerie lets you pull nine gold wyrmlings from thin air, who each fly 200ft and Shocking Grasp for 45d6 damage combined. Nothing is stopping you from combining the effects, either - Grand Menagerie, a load of quickened touch spells and then they're off.