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View Full Version : [Re-Post] Soulslave Sovereign(WIP...anyone think they can help?)



Maho-Tsukai
2011-09-21, 01:24 PM
A re-post of an old class concept that I posted a long time ago who's thread died. I'm still looking for help to prefect it and general advice. If anybody feels they can get this up to par for a (PEACH) thread please, feel free to help.


Soulslave Sovereign
http://i925.photobucket.com/albums/ad100/my-name-is-mary-rebekah/Angels%20Demon%20and%20Magical%20Beings/Demons/anime_girl_dark_warrior-350x350.jpg

-fluff goes here when mechanics are finished-

Requirements

Alignment: Any Evil
Feats: Spell Focus (Necromancy), Greater Spell Focus(Necromancy), Skill Focus: Knowledge(Religion)
Skills: Knowledge(Arcana): 15 Ranks, Knowledge(Religion): 15 Ranks, Knowledge(The Planes): 15 Ranks, Spellcraft: 15 Ranks
Spellcasting: Must be an arcane spellcaster with the ability to prepare and cast or spontaneously cast the spells Animate Dead and Magic Jar.
Special: Must possess the ability to Rebuke Undead.

Class Features

Hit Die: d4
Skills per-level: 2+ Int Modifier
Class Skills: Bluff(Cha), Concentration(Con), Craft(Int), Decipher Script(Int), Intimidate(Cha), Knowledge(All Skills taken Individually)(Int), Profession(Wis), Spellcraft(Int)

Soulslave Sovereign
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Spells

1st|
+0|
+0|
+0|
+2|Impure Resurrection, Rebuke Undead, Allure of the Grave|---

2nd|
+1|
+0|
+0|
+3|A Slave for a Legion|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class

3rd|
+1|
+1|
+1|
+3|Like pieces in a game of chess|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class

4th|
+2|
+1|
+1|
+4|Awaken the Undead Soul|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class

5th|
+2|
+1|
+1|
+4|A Soul for a Soul|+1 level of existing arcane spellcasting class[/table]

Spellcasting: At every level except first, the Soulslave Sovereign gains new spells per day (and spells known, if applicable) as if she had also gained a level in an arcane spellcasting class she belonged to before she added the prestige class. She does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. This essentially means that she adds the level of Soulslave Sovereign to the level of some other spellcasting class the character has, then determines spells per day, spells known, and caster level accordingly. If the Sovereign had more then one arcane spellcasting class before entering this class she must choose which arcane spellcasting class to level up.

Impure Resurrection: The signature power of the Soulslave Sovereign is the ability to preform the dread ritual to create soulslaves by ripping the souls of the fallen from the afterlife. This ritual acts as the spell True Resurrection, except as follows: The person you choose to resurrect is resurrected even if they are not willing, and they cannot resist being resurrected in any way. The person resurrected by this power is resurrected with the soulslave template. The Soulslave Sovereign can give up their charisma modifier worth of Rebuke Undead uses during this ritual to make the soulslaves they create bound to them and forced to follow their commands.

This ritual lacks the material component of the true resurrection spell. Instead, the user must sacrifice at least one living creature with at least 3 intelligence who's HD is equal to at least half of the HD of the soulslave to be animated when preforming this ritual. The user must also have at least some of the remains of the creature to be resurrected present while preforming the ritual. These remains are consumed in the ritual. To successfully create a soulslave the Sovereign must succeed on a caster level check against a DC of 10+ half the HD of the soulslave he is seeking to animate + the will save that the soul in question had during it's life.

The user can resurrect more then one soulslave with one use of this ritual, but he cannot resurrect more soulslaves then he is allowed to control and must sacrifice one additional creature for each soulslave beyond the first that he wishes to create. A soulslave sovereign can control at maximum 3x his caster level in soulslaves. No individual soulslave created by a Soulslave Sovereign can have HD that exceeds the Sovereign's caster level. This ritual takes 1 minute for each souslave you wish to create.

Rebuke Undead: Levels of soulslave sovereign stack with levels of other classes for the purpose of rebuking undead.(So a Dread Necromancer 14/Soulslave Sovereign 2 would rebuke as a 16th level cleric.) If you have levels in more then one class that grants rebuking, you must choose which class to advance at 1st level and that choice cannot be changed.

Allure of the Grave: The tantalizing power offered by the creation of soulslaves is so great that no man can resist it's allure. When you take your first level of soulslave sovereign, you can no longer take levels in any other class until you have taken all five levels of soulslave sovereign.

A Slave for a Legion: As the soulslave sovereign advances in power he learns how to sacrifice his soulslaves and use the energy of their souls to make his undead animation spells stronger. At 2nd level, the Soulslave Sovereign gains the ability to sacrifice a soulslave under his command while casting Animate Dead and add double that Soulslave's HD to the number of undead the soulslave sovereign can animate and control with that particular casting of Animate dead. The Soulslave Sovereign can only use this ability once per-day.

Like Pieces in a Game of Chess: As the Soulslave Sovrign grows in his craft he learns how to command his soulslaves from afar. At 3rd level and every level after the soulslave sovereign can give orders to soulslaves under his control telepathically from any distance and can see through the eyes of all of soulslaves he controls simultaneously.

Awaken the Undead Soul: The soulslave sovereign not only learns how to turn souls into soulslaves but also how to awaken the souls of the other undead he animates. At 4th level the soulslave sovereign gains the ability to sacrifice a soulslave under their control while casting the Animate Dead spell to treat all undead with HD equal to or less then the sacrificed soulslave's HD created with that spell as if they had Awaken Undead cast on them. All effects that a casting of awaken undead would have on them are applied to these undead. This ability can only be used once per-day.

A Soul for a Soul: At the peak of his power the Soulslave Sovereign learns how to do something no arcanist can ever hope to achieve: use the power of resurrection in it's purest form. However, due to not being connected to a deity, the Soulslave Sovereign must trade one soul for another. At 5th level, the soulslave sovereign gains the ability to use True Resurrection once per-day as a supernatural ability by sacrificing a soulslave he controls who's HD is equal to his caster level. In addition, at level 5 and every level after, when the soulslave sovereign dies he is immediately brought back to life as if he had the spell true resurrection cast on him and one soulslave he controls who's HD is equal to his caster level is destroyed. He is brought back to life in the area that the soulslave destroyed was occupying. If there is no soulslaves of the right HD to be destroyed then the sovereign remains dead and cannot be brought back to life except through a wish spell or an epic spell.

New Feats and Templates

Feats

Necromancer's Rebuke
Prerequisites: Arcane spellcaster, 1st level.
As an Arcane spellcaster focused in the arts of necromancy, you study the divine to gain greater power over the undead. You gain the ability to rebuke undead as a cleric of your arcane spellcasting class level a number of times per-day equal to 3+ your cha modifier. If you gain another arcane spellcasting class this ability remains keyed off the arcane spellcasting class you had when you took this feat. The arcane casting class you had when you took this feat is considered a class that grants rebuking for the purposes of determining whether or not a prestige class advances your rebuking ability. This feat can only be taken at 1st level.

Templates

Soulslave Template

Size and Type: The creature’s type changes to undead. It retains any subtypes except alignment subtypes and subtypes that indicate kind. It does not gain the augmented subtype. It uses all the base creature’s statistics and special abilities except as noted here.
Hit Dice: Raise all to d12s.
Speed: As base creature
Armor Class: As base creature
Base Attack Bonus: As base creature
Attacks: As base creature
Damage: As base creature
Special Qualities:

Reborn Soul: A Soulslave retains all class levels it had in life and can use any and all abilities, including spellcasting, manifesting ect.. that it possessed in life. Instead of calculating HD the standard way, each individual class level, racial hit die and point of LA is considered a single HD for a soulslave. While a soulslave possesses any and all class levels it had in life it cannot gain experience or level up. Any spells or other abilities which would require a soulslave to pay or otherwise use XP instead uses the XP of the soulslave sovereign that created them.

True Reflection of the Soul: A soulslave is a special kind of undead that dose not bleed or drip with gore. Rather it appears as a pale, corpse-like version of their original selves that dose not bleed and behaves like it was made of a hard, crusty, dust-like material. A soulslave when created has all items, cloths/armor and weapons that it commonly carried with it in life.(Such as a wizard's spellbook or a fighter's magic sword.) These items, however, are not the original ones but rather copies, as a soulslave's is a reflection of a soul rather then an actual animated corpse and as a result it possesses the things most dear to it in life. If a soulslave is destroyed these items are also destroyed. These items cannot be used by anybody except the soulslaves they belong to. Any item that is seperated from it's soulslave owner turns to dust immedatly and cannot be brought back.

Memories of the Past: A soulslave retains it's personality, mind and memories from it's life. While a Soulslave Sovereign can burn rebuke attempts to bring a soulslave under his control once he has died the soulslaves are severed from his command and operate freely. In addition, soulslaves are effected by mind-effecting spells and abilities as normal creatures. The diplomacy skill can be used to put a soulslave at ease and/or make except death as it's only means of gaining freedom, causing it to crumble into dust and forever be destroyed. The DC for this check is different for each individual soulslave due to all souls having different lives, burdens and personalities and as a result is to be set by the DM personally for each slave.

Forever a Slave: A soulslave counts as a 10HD zombie for the purposes of rebuking when the soulslave sovereign who created them attempts to use their rebuke undead power on them. This ability only applies to the soulslave sovrigen's rebuke power. Clerics, Dread Necromancers and other rebukeing characters cannot rebuke soulslaves, no matter what their level.

Saves: As base creature
Abilities: As base creature, except it has no constitution score.
Skills: As base creature
Feats: As base creature
Challenge Rating: As base creature

(Important Notes: I know this class is most likely broken. There is a reason for that. It was made primarily for NPCs, specifically BBEGs. I like the idea of Kabuto's Edo Tensei jutsu from Naruto but could not see it working as a spell. So I decided to make this as a means to emulate most abilities that come with it, though with a slightly different flavor. Basically, this was a class made for bad guys inspired by the idea of one BBEG bringing back all the past baddies of a campaign to be his super-powered minion squad. However, I feel that as it is, this class is just TOO broken, even for BBEGs, so I want to know what you would do to both keep the concept of a class that creates undead that had all the powers they did in life but make the class slightly more balanced. So, any ideas?)

Silva Stormrage
2011-09-21, 09:45 PM
Yes, as you mentioned yourself this class far too powerful for pc's to use. For a BBEG though it would be a very interesting fight.


One thing to put down is wether abilities are (Su) (Sp) or (Ex). This may not seem that important but since corpse crafter and it's related feats only function off Spells and Spell like abilities it is necessary.

Impure Resurrection: One thing you could consider to make it more balanced for players and also still be able to summon up old BBEG's would be to limit the number of soul slaves controlled at a time and instead limit it to your caster level of undead HD controlled. Then give them the ability to have several soul slaves "in storage" and give them the ability to swap out the soul slaves as a standard action. Maybe at lvl 2 let them control a number of HD equal to 2 times their caster level of soul slaves.

If the caster fails on the caster level check do the rebuke undead uses for controlling the soulslave still get used up?

For the dc of the caster level check do you count magic items he was wearing at the time of death? Class Features? Wisdom? Or is it just the base will save.

A slave for a legion: I really can't see a point for this class feature. It doesn't control much and it effectively lets you get 1 or 2 extra skeletons or 1 zombie. Not sure what you were aiming at with this ability.

Like pieces of a game of chess: Love this ability. Might want to make it so that the Soulslave Sovereign can speak through the soulslaves for extra creepiness. :smallbiggrin:

Awaken the Undead Soul: Unless you are animating 1HD human skeletons a single use of the Awaken Undead spell will cover more undead and only cost 250 XP. I don't think a Soul Sovereign would ever waste the time and effort creating a Soul Slave to make semi intelligent minions.

A Soul for a Soul: I like it, very flavorful and cool ability. One question though, when you say "In addition, at level 5 and every level after, when the soulslave sovereign dies he is immediately brought back to life as if he had the spell true resurrection cast on him and one soulslave he controls who's HD is equal to his caster level is destroyed." Do you mean it can only happen a number of times equal to his level - 5? Not sure what you meant by that.

It looks like a very cool end BBEG class. I guess with what Kabuto can do now in naruto you could buff it. But, I wouldn't suggest making a class that can control 40+ people of equal or higher level. :smallbiggrin:

Maho-Tsukai
2011-09-22, 08:33 AM
Impure Res- I do like the idea of swapping out soulslaves, though I have to ask what you meant by the 2HD x caster level control thing? Did you mean thats the maximum you can make and control with the ritual, the maximum you can control(but not make) or the maximum you can have with you/fighting for you at a time? I ask because it's an important distinction. If that is the maximum you can control and not make then it's really pointless to be allowed to make the others as they would have their free will and thus attack you at creation. However, if thats the maximum you can have ACTIVE it makes more sense as you can have others that you make "in storage" who won't be trying to kill you but can still be swapped in if need be. Some clarity on what you meant here would be helpful.

A soul for a Soul- As for the capstone soul for a soul power, that level 5 thing was simply me indicating that when you get the firth level in this PrC you can use that ability, AND use it every level after 5th. However, if it seems redundant to put that in I can remove it and I apologize for the lack of clarity.

Other problem powers- The two abilities you said where kinda useless were there as a way to allow the sovereign to destroy soulslaves so he could get more powerful ones as he leveled up without having to wait for his weaker ones to be killed off. If you have a better way to mitigate this issue I'd like to know. Perhaps fold it into the "replacement" system and allow unlimited soulslaves to be created but only a certain number to be active at once? Or perhaps think of better things to sacrifice them for?

Thanks for helping out, by the way.