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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.

Latronis
2010-09-18, 06:53 PM
you're still playing as a space crack addicted green rock though.

and tbh still full of suck.

Except for the conditional save bonus Unnatural and null metabolism basically covers all the perks of the living construct subtype anyway, it's trading back the nice construct traits for your con score and a subtype that grants what the class already grants.

drop the dex penalty and throw in another 2 full spellcasting levels and now you're talking

Siosilvar
2010-09-18, 08:07 PM
No full BAB for a half-casting gish PrC? Strength bonus does make up for it, but you have to spread out your stats over at least Strength, Constitution, and [Casting Stat].


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.

Although it may be movie-like, I'm not sure that's the term you were going for here... :smallwink:

That said... although these do help a bit (and are very flavorful), they're still not real abilities (with the exception of Radiance of Alhazarde). All a Green Star Adept gets is some minor casting (albeit casting is excellent), numbers boosts, and the ability to passively ignore a bunch of different effects... admittedly, almost every effect in the game.

Starbuck_II
2010-09-18, 09:22 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.

I'd say give them a choice:
Know (Arch/engineering) or Know (Nature) rather than force one or the other.

The Vorpal Tribble
2010-10-07, 11:18 PM
drop the dex penalty and throw in another 2 full spellcasting levels and now you're talking
I suppose that wouldn't be too bad.

But should it be added with this:

No full BAB for a half-casting gish PrC?


That said... although these do help a bit (and are very flavorful), they're still not real abilities (with the exception of Radiance of Alhazarde). All a Green Star Adept gets is some minor casting (albeit casting is excellent), numbers boosts, and the ability to passively ignore a bunch of different effects... admittedly, almost every effect in the game.
I'd consider Inner Connection with a 3/day DR 15/-, +20 Str to resist being moved, and ability to freeze in mid-air pretty nice. It's also a Concentration length. Can stay that way indefinitely.


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.

Eldan
2010-10-08, 07:47 AM
For Knowledgeable: how about craft: alchemy? You are, basically using alchemical processes.

Now, for tied to the material plane: it's a good idea, and one that needs expansion. How about, for a start, make him able to cut off others from planar connections, making teleportation and other spells relying on non-material planes impossible in a radius around him? Deactivateable, of course.

Stycotl
2010-10-09, 04:03 PM
can you write up a normal class description for this, with a table, including all of the canon abilities that you are keeping, and your own? that would make it easier to review and balance, and would give a better idea of what levels are loaded or sparse or just fine.

until then, i'm gonna do a by-level rundown to make sure that i understand what would be gained at each level.

HD: d8 hit points
BAB: medium
saves: fort and will good; reflex bad
class skills: 4+int class skills; appraise, concentration, craft, decipher script, knowledge (all), profession, and spellcraft

1: DR 1/adamantine; improved caster level; star metal dependancy; +1 strength; -1 dexterity; +1 natural armor
2: slam; +2 some fort saves; +1 lvl spells known/per day
3: fortification (25%); starmetal slam
4: darkvision +60'/lowlight vision x2; +4 spot; +1 ranged attacks; +2 str; +2 natural armor; +1 lvl spells known/per day
5: +4 some fort saves; immovability 3/day; anti-teleport at will; dimensional anchor pin; material plane self summon
6: fortification (50%); starmetal field; +1 lvl spells known/per day
7: sustenance; immune to sleep, inhaled poisons, drowning, etc; +8 spot; +2 ranged; +4 str; -2 dex; +4 natural armor
8: +6 some fort saves; +1 lvl spells known/per day
9: fortification 75%; starmetal burst
10: fast healing 1/hour of rest; +12 spot; +3 ranged; +6 str; -3 dex; +6 natural armor; starmetal burst healing; immovability at will; immune poison, sleep, paralysis, disease, nausea, fatigue, exhaustion, energy drain; 1/2 effect from healing effects; +1 lvl spells known/per day

possible: ability to burn constitution to power effects; level undecided

correct me if any of this is wrong.

a couple of things:

1末good fort save is ok, but if the class ends up too heavily loaded, i'd drop it to bad; you'll still be immune to almost every fort-related effect out there, and the ones that you aren't immune to you have an eventual +6 fort saves and 75% fortification against.

2末the starmetal dependancy always struck me as weird, but i like the idea of a dependancy or some other major hindrance. the gsa's version of vampiric weaknesses. maybe the gsa takes damage or suffers some kind of penalties when off of its material plane or something.

3末the perfection bonuses to spot seem too big for me. if you cut them in half, it keeps it in line with the strength/natural armor bonuses and would seem fine to me.

4末if you do drop the dex penalty, then drop the ranged attack bonuses too. otherwise, i'm fine with both of them.

5末i like the idea of rolling the immovability variants granted by inner connection into one ability. say, at 5th level, 3/day the gsa can root itself to the plane, and 3/day can transport itself back to the material plane; at 10th level these two effects become at will

6末the dimensional anchor pin is cool, but since it requires grappling, it just seems kind of separate from the mood of the rest of the class to me. i'd just say that 3/day it can use dimensional anchor on a target in range.

7末i had envisioned that you would make the class work with more caster level increases, and was surprised that you didn't. however, what you have works, i think. i still want to see what the general consensus is from the others.

i disagree with siosilver about it not gaining real abilities. for one, with your fix, it gains some impressive battlefield control and area effect abilities.

(EDIT: it just dawned on me that you might have put those abilities p after siosilver's post...)

but on top of that, it is still a half-casting class, and while half casters have their own problems, they can still contribute amazingly; they just don't generally get 8th or 9th level spells. this guy doesn't have to worry about spell level loss as much as base class half casters (still gets 7th level spells if he enters the prc as an 8th level wizard in order to meet BAB reqs). and with improved caster level, he will still have a full caster level (barring gish multiclassing) for caster-dependant effects.

(EDIT-EDIT: actually gets 8th level spells if it enters as an 8th level wizard)

that said, if you want to add more spells known/per day, then you would need to cut out a decent amount of the bonuses and abilities that you are granted.

8末last of all, these are just my thoughts so far; i am sure that i am not aware of all of the possible strengths and weaknesses that i might be under or overestimating. so i am open to argument against any of my points.