"Dark" Forms

[Rhaegar14]

There are plenty of franchises where the protagonist has an inner, darker self that can manifest to give them increased power (Bleach and Naruto, Devil May Cry, Kingdom Hearts to a lesser extent... you get the idea). Is there any good prestige class that can represent this, even if a little refluffing is required? This is mostly an exercise in curiosity, but I'm looking for something that has a power gain that's a bit more extreme and esoteric (per se) than a Barbarian's rage. Stuff like spell-like abilities would be great. Any suggestions?

[Serpentine]

Well, you could refluff just about any class to get this effect. Barbarian, Warlock and Favoured Soul come most to mind for me. Maybe... Demon Thralls?
Could be stuff in Homebrew, too.

[peacenlove]

Technically any spellcaster with access to the polymorph line of spells or similar magic. Sorcerers would be better however thematically IMO.

[Rhaegar14]

Well, you could refluff just about any class to get this effect. Barbarian, Warlock and Favoured Soul come most to mind for me. Maybe... Demon Thralls?
Could be stuff in Homebrew, too.

Yes, but a Barbarian's "rargh I'm angry" mode is pretty mundane for what I'm thinking of, and Warlocks and Favored Souls aren't really temporary enough, so to speak. Where are Demon Thralls again? Sounds familiar but can't think of it off the top of my head.

Homebrew's probably a good suggestion though.

[Serpentine]

I think they're mostly "Thrall of So-and-so" classes. Can't remember where I read them, though... Book of Vile Darkness, perhaps?
So somewhere between Barbarian and Warlock/Favoured Soul... If you can negotiate with you DM, what about a tweaked and refluffed shapeshifter Druid with just a few very specific wildshapes?

[only1doug]

Check out Rich's Champion class (Post #9 in the thread below).

The Champion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172910)

You may want to refluff it slightly to change to a Dark champion.

[drakir_nosslin]

Limit Freak (http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19528498/The_Limit_Warriors?pg=1). That one should work pretty nice.

[Rhaegar14]

Check out Rich's Champion class (Post #9 in the thread below).

Th Champion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172910)

I actually used a quite-heavily modified version of that class for a short-lived campaign, but found myself frustrated by how absolutely useless my character was outside of Avatar form for how few times I could use it (we died at level 2 or 3, and the main change was nerfing pretty much all of the class' base numbers to give it full cleric casting progression because we needed a divine caster... would've been freaking AWESOME down the road, but at level 3, it was left somewhat meh).

The Demonbind class feature for Demonbinder out of DoU looks somewhat promising if it could be separated from the class and retooled a bit...

@drakir: Wow. That's a really awesome chunk of homebrew that I will DEFINITELY be looking for a chance to use at some point, even if not for this. XD

[DoctorGlock]

Psionics gets Form of Doom. You turn into a hideous monster with a load of tentacles. They also get planar embrace which gives wings, funky skin and some SLAs of a half celestial/half fiend. Divine spells get the Holy Transformation line as well as the Visage of the Deity line. Arcane gets the polymorph stuff but it doesn't fit the dark side flavor as well since there are to many controlled options. Planar shepherd to one of the nastier planes can get it, complete with all SLAs.

[Ivellius]

The capstone ability of the ToB's Setting Sun Ninja would qualify, I'd think. It even has a chance of trapping your soul forever and turning you into a vampire!

[Warpwolf16]

I suggest alchemist to master chymist, who doesnt love being mr. hyde?

[Fizzban]

Summoner with the Synthesis archtype refluff as needed.

Fizz

[Kaje]

Refluff a binder.

[maysarahs]

+1 to Master Chymist, when I read the OP's question thats exactly what I thought of. Though it comes with the added fluff of drinking potions to unlock the "dark" form...

[squeekenator]

The capstone ability of the ToB's Setting Sun Ninja would qualify, I'd think. It even has a chance of trapping your soul forever and turning you into a vampire!

This. I'm actually rather surprised you're the only person who's said it so far. The entire point of the class is that you're a good person controlling the darkness within and using it to obtain superpowers.

[DragonOfUndeath]

Just play a Psion but always withhold your best Powers
Then pull a "I am NOT Left-handed" moment and throw up Psionic Time-Stop, Buff yourself (including something to give you a dark aura or transform into a beast) then the second it ends throw a fully-augmented Fiery AoE behind you (works best if surrounded) (may require a Delay Power Metapsionic feat to pull off the badass-itude)
Then totally bad-ass your way out/RP being a Dark You and when the buffs expire return to normal.

[Cerlis]

This. I'm actually rather surprised you're the only person who's said it so far. The entire point of the class is that you're a good person controlling the darkness within and using it to obtain superpowers.


yes, if you are so familiar with all those anime and some would say anime-esc stories youd like all the manuevers and stuff. and the dark form not only has the dark reprecussion, but its main benefit is allowing you to give negative levels at a touch (a powerful form of damage, how you "die" is by giving a number of levels equal to your maximum or something, turning you into an evil npc.). Other abilities of the class include an ability where you close your eyes and you are treated as not blinded used simultaniously with an ability that makes it pure darkness and then blinding light everyturn.

i bet the people here could help you make a good Gish using wilder and a good melee class for almost full casting (focusing on the many psychic self buffs) with decent melee ability. some abilities that would add to the monster effect is at low level growing claws and acid coming from your hands. Gaining stats, being able to suck out the life of your enemies. a lvl 9 power lets you attempt to absorb an enemy, if it kills them you gain alot of temporary hit points and +4 to all stats.

you could also have several on use abilities that have different sources and your "badass moment" is when they all happen at once. For instance a shifter barbarian frenzied berserker who only rages and his dark moment makes him shift and if it gets worse frenzie.

[raxies94]

Lord_Gareth's Harrowed Class sounds pretty similar to what you're looking for. It even has you have to make a will save whenever you use your dark powers, or else the beast controls you for a time.

[RndmNumGen]

Psionics gets Form of Doom. You turn into a hideous monster with a load of tentacles. They also get planar embrace which gives wings, funky skin and some SLAs of a half celestial/half fiend.

This. Wilders also get Overchannel, which lets them burn extra pp to get even stronger powers, but with the risk of entropy.

Could easily be refluffed so you pull on some dark force to power up your abilities. Heck, you could even withhold from using your powers at all unless you go into dark mode; Wilders get 3/4ths BAB and can wear heavy armor without it interfering with powers(though they still need to pick up proficiency somewhere). That won't make you strong in melee, as you will be roughly equivalent to a NPC Warrior, but it does open options for easier fights.

[DragonOfUndeath]

StP Erudite that collects Psicrystals.
Have the Delayed and Quicken Metapsionics as well as Psicrystal Contaiment and that feat that lets you get Focus as a move.
Dark Form means Quickened Time Stop, Plane Shift to a pre-prepared Demi-plane with 100-1 time dilation.
Load up on buffs and telepathy from the Psicrystals and return, throw down as many Delayed AoEs as you can, using the Psicrystals to fuel it.
When the Time-Stop ends Telepathically project "Time to die." in as creepy a voice as possible into your enemies' minds as the AoEs go off.

Keep draining from your Psicrystals and throw around fully-augmented attack spells untill you run out.
For fluff, drop prone (or stand still, seemingly fighting inner demons) and dispel any visual effects of buffs (or the buffs themselves).
Get up and act like nothing happened

[The-Mage-King]

My homebrewed OWA (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=175463) class will work. It even has levels of transformation!

'course, it only works when you're injured.

Note that it's designed for any character with at least one transformation to use. Not nessicarily evil-doers, despite the name.

[Mr. Zolrane]

Yes, but a Barbarian's "rargh I'm angry" mode is pretty mundane for what I'm thinking of

Funny you should mention that. It doesn't have to be "rargh, I'm angry," necessarily. I played a barbarian named Sephus Vayne whose rage came from being possessed by a creature called The Dread. The Dread was born from the anguish of the murdered citizens of his hometown. The creature was Lawful Evil, cruel, and vindictive, and also extremely protective of his host, Sephus. Sephus himself? Anything but. In fact, he was the least barbaric barbarian one could ever hope to meet. He was Neutral Good, naive, and nice to a fault, even to a blackguard who he was fairly certain had murdered the man who he thought of as his brother. When he raged, however, The Dread took over, and tore into his foes with vicious abandon. I saw all that to say this: barbarians can be a lot deeper than usual with a bit of refluffing.


I suggest alchemist to master chymist, who doesnt love being mr. hyde?

That's a fun one. Alchemists are often played as twitchy and unstable to begin with, and this only adds to the effect.

[mabriss lethe]

for the sake of simplicity, I'll second the idea of refluffing rage or a rage variant, If you're looking for some other repertoire of powers, you could pick up something like Animal Devotion.

[Rhaegar14]

Funny you should mention that. It doesn't have to be "rargh, I'm angry," necessarily. I played a barbarian named Sephus Vayne whose rage came from being possessed by a creature called The Dread. The Dread was born from the anguish of the murdered citizens of his hometown. The creature was Lawful Evil, cruel, and vindictive, and also extremely protective of his host, Sephus. Sephus himself? Anything but. In fact, he was the least barbaric barbarian one could ever hope to meet. He was Neutral Good, naive, and nice to a fault, even to a blackguard who he was fairly certain had murdered the man who he thought of as his brother. When he raged, however, The Dread took over, and tore into his foes with vicious abandon. I saw all that to say this: barbarians can be a lot deeper than usual with a bit of refluffing.



That's a fun one. Alchemists are often played as twitchy and unstable to begin with, and this only adds to the effect.

When I say mundane, I mean the effects. The cause can be refluffed to whatever you damn well please. XD

Still, thanks to all for the input.

[Acero]

Rich himself made a class that could work calledThe Champion (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172910) (takes a little scrolling.)

Could flavor it as an avatar of an evil god if you want the Dark-side part. Even make it a conflict point.

EDIT: Swordsaged by a mile.

[HappyBlanket]

Expanding on the Binder refluff mentioned a bit back.

Refluff the vestiges to be inner selves (TM). When you bind them, you aren't calling out to an alien entity from beyond the reaches of reality; you're reaching in to the depths of your mind/psyche/whatever. The Influence of each vestige supports this take pretty well (and you can intentionally fail the binding check to resist the Influence).

Most of them are pretty evil, or at least disturbing, so they'll do for inner evils. Only problem is that a Binder is expected to stay bound throughout the entire day, so it doesn't really have the "releasing evil" flavor.


That said, I'd advise the Champion too. Rich lists it as Good though, but that's easily overlooked if you're using a villainous avatar. Silverclawshift played one, in The Third Tale (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6401899&postcount=16) (sic). I'm sure you've read it, but the general idea is morphing from a peasant to a killing machine with a verbal command (it's name, maybe?).

Course, as mentioned, it's near useless when it's not in the Avatar state form. But it's not like you expected to play a character who was always super powered, did you?

Kinda tangential, but...I recall a particular encounter that required SCS's Champion to jump from atop a bridge to intercept a carriage down below. The fall damage would almost certainly kill her, so she transformed into her Avatar form mid air, knocked her avatar into the negatives on impact, and rose from the cracked cobblestone crater completely unharmed. I mean, goddamn.

Even more tangential, but now that I think about it, a Binder fluffed as a Persona user works ever so well... "Orthos emerges from the sea of your soul!"

[Khatoblepas]

I'm sure you've read it, but the general idea is morphing from a peasant to a killing machine with a verbal command (it's name, maybe?).


Gone, gone the form of man,
Rise the demon Etrigan!

This is (really) cheesy, but if you make the possessing force the main character and the cohort the victim, you can easily do this.

Phaerimm Fiend of Possession with Leadership for:

Human Factotum 8/Warhulk 10

Load up the Phaerimm with all the gish feats, and the cohort with Knowledge feats and other fluffy stuff. Soon as you possess him, pop an Enlarge Person (or be inside a ring of it and possess your cohort when he puts it on) for Sorcerer casting as SLAs equal to your character level, almost full BAB assuming you take full BAB classes outside of Fiend of Possession and +10 Str. Oh, and +3 Profane bonus to any ability score. You could even turn that into a penalty if you want.

And your physical form is an antedeluvian who is useless at fighting. Of course, you could give your antedeluvian some skillful gnome quickrazors and Iajustu Focus to give him some combat utility. But when you need to hulk out, you can really hulk out.

[Milo v3]

Have you thought of the Giants "Champion" base class. It can easily be flavoured into exactly what you want.

[DragonOfUndeath]

Have you thought of the Giants "Champion" base class. It can easily be flavoured into exactly what you want.

That is like the 4-5th time that was mentioned.
Epicly Ninja'ed mate

[WinWin]

Lycanthrope. Captures the essence of the beast within perfectly.

Black Blood Cultist & Black Blood Hunter can benefit here.

Another thematic style incorperates feindish/faustiant pacts or an empowerment via corruption.

Acolyte of the Skin. Fiend Blooded. Tainted Scholar. Corrupt Avenger. Maho Bushi.

[askandarion]

One of my DMs helped me to homebrew a prestige class for my sorcerer/warlock- I don't have the details, but basically I added templates to my character for a short amount of time (half-demon or half-dragon), and eventually the potential to combine them. It depended on what powers I used more and if I overchanneled (homebrew for arcane stuff instead of wilders), although eventually I could choose to change. I realize it's homebrew, so would depend on the DM and player working out the details, but temporary templates/boosts per day instead of slowly gaining them permanently doesn't seem to be done often.