The Vorpal Tribble
2010-09-18, 06:05 PM
I'm currently playing a Green Star Adept on the forums here, and my DM has asked me to attempt to make it more playable. Here is my first attempt, and feel free to offer suggestions or critiques.
Knowledge
Replace the prerequisite Knowledge (architecture and engineering) 2 with Knowledge (nature). You are not constructing yourself. You are changing your structure with a substance that resonates with the material plane, and apparently life itself. It also represents your knowledge of the sky and natural astronomical phenomena.
As well, replace the above in the list of class skills.
Skill Points
You are playing a knowledge-rich PrC, requiring much research each time you wish to change and you only get 2 + Int? 4 + Int mod would make a lot more sense and add a little oomph to the build.
Saves
Since we're going to end up keeping your Con score, let's give them good Fort saves too.
Otherworldy Vision
This is a useful ability, except unless you're playing a straight human, you already likely have one of those abilities. Let's take this a step further. You spend much of the time out at night studying the dark sky. Your eyes are also becoming some kind of metallic sensing device. Why not telescopic?
You gain darkvision and lowlight vision, but if you already had them you can see twice as far as normal. If you had darkvision out to 60 feet it becomes 120 feet. If you could see twice as far as humans in dim lighting you can see four times as far.
You also gain a +4 perfection bonus to Spot Checks and a +1 to Ranged Attacks. You gain another bonus to spot and ranged bonus at 7th and 10th level, equal to previous bonus. These bonuses stack.
This also helps counteract the Dex loss and allows the GSA to be a potent long-range sniper instead of forcing the character into a melee build. Sniper build is further enhanced by the Strength bonus when using bows, nicely tying everything in together.
Despite the fact you are turning into a creature comprised of Starmetal, you get no bonuses against outsiders. To give a little more reason to take this class to later levels I propose the following:
Radiance of Alhazarde: At 3rd level you have ingested enough starmetal so that your natural attacks are considered to be starmetal for the purpose of affecting creatures with the extraplanar subtype. As such, you deal 1d6 extra point of damage to such creatures. At 6th level you begin to generate a field about yourself. Any non-material creature that enters your space, such as to grapple, must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 15 + GSA level) or become Nauseated. Even if they make their save they still take 1d6 damage and are sickened until their next turn. This applies to non-material creatures that are normally immune to nausea and sickness. At 9th level you can release a burst of this energy once per day per GSA level. All non-material creatures within 60 feet must make the save or be affected, but also automatically take 4d6 damage. At 10th level you heal yourself a number of points equal to that of the damage dealt. If this would grant you excess hit points you gain fast healing 5 each round, 'using up' the excess hit points until none remain.
Then there is the unexplained reason that Starmetal has a special connection to the material plane. Let's draw upon that and make a GSA become intrinsically tied to the Material.
Inner Connection: At 5th level a Green Star Adept gains a natural connection with the fabric of the Material Plane alike to starmetal, that when combined with your living tissue produces a unique bond. While on the Material Plane they cannot be teleported to another plane unless they allow it. Once on another plane, they may allow the Material Plane to pull them back to the exact location they transported from as a movie action without requiring a spell. This is similar to a summoned creature automatically returning at the end of the duration. If another transportational affect takes them back to the material plane however, they appear where they would normally by the use of the spell. If on a non material plane they may be teleported to another plane, or the Material, and have to make a save as normal.
While pinning a creature on the material plane, their opponent is affected as by a dimensional anchor spell.
Finally, a Green Star Adept may attach themselves firmly to the underlying fabric of the material plane (though not other planes) as the Immovability (http://dndsrd.net/psionicPowersGtoP.html#immovability) power three times per day. At 10th level you may use this ability at will.
Finally, instead of losing all your hit points I suggest we give the Green Star Adept the Living Construct type. He keeps all the immunities/bonuses provided by Unnatural Metabolism and Null Metabolism.
Edit
Am thinking of a weirdie little ability. You are both construct and living, ok? You still have a con score and all that it entails, but losing con means nothing to you. You can survive without 'life' as it were. You can even burn it to do certain things. You life force becomes the fuel of your structure. So you get it sucked out, big deal. You lose the HP bonuses and such, but that's mainly it. You gain a Con of - instead of 0.
Still thinking on what you can burn it on however.
Knowledge
Replace the prerequisite Knowledge (architecture and engineering) 2 with Knowledge (nature). You are not constructing yourself. You are changing your structure with a substance that resonates with the material plane, and apparently life itself. It also represents your knowledge of the sky and natural astronomical phenomena.
As well, replace the above in the list of class skills.
Skill Points
You are playing a knowledge-rich PrC, requiring much research each time you wish to change and you only get 2 + Int? 4 + Int mod would make a lot more sense and add a little oomph to the build.
Saves
Since we're going to end up keeping your Con score, let's give them good Fort saves too.
Otherworldy Vision
This is a useful ability, except unless you're playing a straight human, you already likely have one of those abilities. Let's take this a step further. You spend much of the time out at night studying the dark sky. Your eyes are also becoming some kind of metallic sensing device. Why not telescopic?
You gain darkvision and lowlight vision, but if you already had them you can see twice as far as normal. If you had darkvision out to 60 feet it becomes 120 feet. If you could see twice as far as humans in dim lighting you can see four times as far.
You also gain a +4 perfection bonus to Spot Checks and a +1 to Ranged Attacks. You gain another bonus to spot and ranged bonus at 7th and 10th level, equal to previous bonus. These bonuses stack.
This also helps counteract the Dex loss and allows the GSA to be a potent long-range sniper instead of forcing the character into a melee build. Sniper build is further enhanced by the Strength bonus when using bows, nicely tying everything in together.
Despite the fact you are turning into a creature comprised of Starmetal, you get no bonuses against outsiders. To give a little more reason to take this class to later levels I propose the following:
Radiance of Alhazarde: At 3rd level you have ingested enough starmetal so that your natural attacks are considered to be starmetal for the purpose of affecting creatures with the extraplanar subtype. As such, you deal 1d6 extra point of damage to such creatures. At 6th level you begin to generate a field about yourself. Any non-material creature that enters your space, such as to grapple, must succeed on a Fortitude save (DC 15 + GSA level) or become Nauseated. Even if they make their save they still take 1d6 damage and are sickened until their next turn. This applies to non-material creatures that are normally immune to nausea and sickness. At 9th level you can release a burst of this energy once per day per GSA level. All non-material creatures within 60 feet must make the save or be affected, but also automatically take 4d6 damage. At 10th level you heal yourself a number of points equal to that of the damage dealt. If this would grant you excess hit points you gain fast healing 5 each round, 'using up' the excess hit points until none remain.
Then there is the unexplained reason that Starmetal has a special connection to the material plane. Let's draw upon that and make a GSA become intrinsically tied to the Material.
Inner Connection: At 5th level a Green Star Adept gains a natural connection with the fabric of the Material Plane alike to starmetal, that when combined with your living tissue produces a unique bond. While on the Material Plane they cannot be teleported to another plane unless they allow it. Once on another plane, they may allow the Material Plane to pull them back to the exact location they transported from as a movie action without requiring a spell. This is similar to a summoned creature automatically returning at the end of the duration. If another transportational affect takes them back to the material plane however, they appear where they would normally by the use of the spell. If on a non material plane they may be teleported to another plane, or the Material, and have to make a save as normal.
While pinning a creature on the material plane, their opponent is affected as by a dimensional anchor spell.
Finally, a Green Star Adept may attach themselves firmly to the underlying fabric of the material plane (though not other planes) as the Immovability (http://dndsrd.net/psionicPowersGtoP.html#immovability) power three times per day. At 10th level you may use this ability at will.
Finally, instead of losing all your hit points I suggest we give the Green Star Adept the Living Construct type. He keeps all the immunities/bonuses provided by Unnatural Metabolism and Null Metabolism.
Edit
Am thinking of a weirdie little ability. You are both construct and living, ok? You still have a con score and all that it entails, but losing con means nothing to you. You can survive without 'life' as it were. You can even burn it to do certain things. You life force becomes the fuel of your structure. So you get it sucked out, big deal. You lose the HP bonuses and such, but that's mainly it. You gain a Con of - instead of 0.
Still thinking on what you can burn it on however.