[3.5] He who Wars against the Land. (PEACH)

[toapat]

Ill admit Right now that this class is a For Fun one.
Note that this class heavily relies on the expanded Siege rules within the Heros of Battle supplement


http://www.acclaimimages.com/_gallery/_free_images/0420-0907-3020-0104_soldier_standing_in_front_of_barbed_wire_usin g_binoculars_m.jpg
The enemy outnumber us a thousand to one. Little do they know such numbers matter little. Our walls will stand strong, while they shall know only the sight of the eternal night which I bring. ~Gideon, Master Combat Engineer, watching an unwitting army setting up for a siege of Neverwinter.

Artillery is the King of war, and the Master Combat Engineer lords over artillery. From hand explosive to crossbows to Siege towers and Tebuchets, these men and women live, eat, sleep and breath the proverb "Rocks fall, Everyone Dies." Those who study to become Master Combat Engineers also have minor magical talents, but never developed them beyond what is needed to summon the engineer's favorite toys for a time from their workshop far away, or what is needed to staff the weapons alone. More powerful spellcasting is not beyond an engineer, but they will typically use scrolls to better shape these minor evocations.

Game Rule Information:
Master Combat Engineers have the following game statistics:
Attributes: Intelligence is the most important attribute of an engineer, as it allows them to more accurately aim their weapons. Dexterity is useful, as it increases the Engineer's reflex save. Constitution allows an engineer to have more health
Starting Age: As Wizard
Starting Gold: None, a Master Siege Engineer begins with 1 Crossbow of their Choice, a Workshop, a Scorpion siege engine, and armor and supplies valuing no more then 20gp


Master Combat Engineer
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |
Mystic Siege Preparations Known|
Mystic Sieges Prepared

1st|+0|+0|+2|+0|Heavy Weapons Training, Grenade 1d6, Rapid Reload|
1|
1

2nd|+1|+0|+3|+0|Summon Balista, Summon Siege Engine 1Minute/day|
2|
1

3rd|+2|+1|+3|+1|Find weakness (25% fortification bypass)|
2|
1

4th|+3|+1|+4|+1|Bonus Feat, Trapfinding|
3|
2

5th|+3|+1|+4|+1|Grenade 2d6|
4|
2

6th|+4|+2|+5|+2|Summon Siege Engine 2Minute/day, Evasion|
4|
2

7th|+5|+2|+5|+2|Bonus Feat, Artillery Savant|
5|
3

8th|+6/+1|+2|+6|+2|Summon Catapult|
6|
3

9th|+6/+1|+3|+6|+3|Cluster Bolts|
6|
3

10th|+7/+2|+3|+7|+3|Bonus Feat, Summon Siege Engine 3Minute/day, Grenade 3d6|
7|
4

11th|+8/+3|+3|+7|+3|Find weakness (50% fortification bypass)|
8|
4

12th|+9/+4|+4|+8|+4|Summon Tebuchete|
8|
4

13th|+9/+4|+4|+8|+4|Bonus Feat|
9|
5

14th|+10/+5|+4|+9|+4|Summon Siege Engine 4Minute/day|
10|
5

15th|+11/+6/+1|+5|+9|+5|Grenade 4d6|
10|
5

16th|+12/+7/+2|+5|+10|+5|Bonus Feat, Artillery Mastery|
11|
6

17th|+12/+7/+2|+5|+10|+5|Cluster Warheads|
12|
6

18th|+13/+8/+3|+6|+11|+6|Summon Siege Engine 5Minute/day, Improved Evasion|
12|
6

19th|+14/+9/+4|+6|+11|+6|Bonus Feat, Find weakness (75% fortification bypass)|
13|
7

20th|+15/+10/+5|+6|+12|+6|Grenade 5d6, M.O.A.B.|
14|
7

[/table]
Alignment: Any
Hit Die: 1d8

Class Skills: Craft (Int), Disable Device (Int), Knowledge (Architecture and Engineering) (Int), Listen (Wis), Open Lock (Dex), Profession (Siege Engineer) (Wis), Repair (Int), Spot (Wis), Search (Int)
Skill Points at 1st Level: (8 + Int modifier) × 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 8 + Int modifier

Class Features:
Weapons and Armor Proficiencies: A Master Combat Engineer is proficient with all crossbows, with all Siege weapons, and with the Maul. Master Combat Engineers are proficient with Light Armor and no shields.

Heavy Weapons Training: You train exclusively in the weapons of siege. When aiming any Crossbow, Grenade, or Siege engine, an engineer is treated as though he had full base attack bonus for his levels of Master Combat Engineer.

Grenade: A number of times a day, equal to your intellect modifier + 3, A Master Combat Engineer may toss a grenade at his foes. This Grenade deals 1d6 damage to all creatures in a 10 foot radius from where it impacts. This damage increases by 1d6 at every 5th level. Creatures within the blast radius may made a DC (10+Master Combat Engineer Level+Int mod) Reflex save for half.

Rapid Reload: An engineer gains Rapid Reload as a bonus feat

Summon Siege Engine: At second level, an engineer can summon one of the siege engines he owns while it is sitting completed in his workshop. He can not summon a siege engine if the area he is in is too small for the engine to fit within. At Second level, he may only summon the Engine for one minute, but this duration extends by one minute every 4th level afterwards. When this time is up, or when the engineer dismisses the engine, it returns to his workshop. These Siege engines may have Weapon enhancements placed upon them, and armor enhancements if the siege engine is armored.

Summon Ballista: At second level, an Engineer can summon a finished Scorpion from his workshop. At level 8, he may instead summon a Light Ballista from the workshop floor. Finally, at level 14, he is able to call forth a mighty Heavy Ballista from his workshop.

Summon Catapult: At 8th level, an Engineer can call a light Mangonel from his workshop. At 16th level he is able to call a Heavy Mangonel from his workshop.

Summon Trebuchet: At 12th level, the engineer can call forth a light Trebuchet from the workshop. At 20th level, he may call a Heavy Trebuchet instead.

Find Weakness: At third level, an engineer can recognise minor flaws in structures, walls, and enemies, and is able to bypass their immunity to critical hits 25% of the time, this Bonus doubles every 8th level afterwards. This abillity allows the engineer to land critical hits on any construct or undead.

Bonus Feats: Engineers gain a bonus feat at 4th level, and every 4th level afterwards

Trapfinding, Evasion, and Improved Evasion: As the rogue abilities

Artillery Savant: An Engineer gets +2 on all checks made using a Siege Engine

Artillery Mastery: An Engineer gets an additional +2 on all checks made using a siege engine, bringing the bonus to +4

Cluster Bolts: An engineer may fire bolts from his crossbow that split appart in mid air to cover a wider area. At +6 BAB, the engineer now hits all squares in a circle with a 10 foot diameter. The diameter expands by 5 feet for every +5 BAB bonus afterwards. This ability causes the engineer to take -2 to their attack bonus for every 5 feet of diameter. If a creature is in multiple squares effected by this ability, they are hit multiple times.

Cluster Warheads: The engineer's grenades are now imbued with the energy of raw destruction. The radius of the blast increases by 5 feet, and they explode into raw Force. This negates the save of the grenades and causes them to split in mid air, causing one grenade to split into 4. The blast of the grenades is the same as a Meteor Swarm spell.

M.O.A.B.: War destroys, and the land is the greatest casualty of it. Once a month, an Engineer can create the effects of an Earthquake spell at will. All creatures on land when caught in the Earthquake are knocked down.

Mystic Siege Preparations: There are a few spells that an engineer learns, theirs is the way of science. They do not entirely forsake it though, learning to summon, enchant, and use their siege equipment.

General list
Least Preparations:
Conjure Bolts: summons 50 masterwork crossbow bolts, or 10 masterwork ballista bolts. These Bolts gain a +1 enhancement bonus at 4th level, and an additional +1 every 4th level
Conjure Shot or Stones: Summons 20 loads of shot, or 10 stones. These projectiles gain a +1 enhancement bonus at 4th level, and an additional +1 every 4th level
Animate Siege Engine: Enchants the siege engine to load, arm, and move itself for 1 Hour. You must still aim and fire the engine though.

Minor:
Fireball shot: Enchants Siege projectiles to explode as though they were the fireball spell. These fireballs have a DC of 10+1/2 MCE level+Int Mod and have a caster level equal to his MCE level
Disease shot: Siege weapons spread plagues at point of impact
Magic Siege Weapon: Siege weapon gains +1 enhancement bonus
Summon Siege Engine: Creates a spectral siege weapon for 5 minutes per level of MCE, incapable of being enchanted, considered to be under permanent Animate Siege Engine.
Splitting shot: Projectiles from the enchanted Siege weapon suffer -5 attack bonus, but split in flight. The projectiles split in flight and strike over a diameter equal to 5 feet for every 5 levels of MCE

Major:
Greater Magic Siege Weapon: +1 Enhancement bonus per 4 levels of MCE
Exploding Bolts: Enchants crossbow so that fired bolts explode as though they were the fireball spell, with MCE level for CL and DCs of 10+ 1/2 MCE level + Int Mod.

[toapat]

Post reserved for feats, ACFs, and Spells

How do you guys think?

Old features:

Rolling Thunder: Once a Year, the Engineer may call forth the power of the heavens to devastate Armies. This ability causes numerous detonations over an area 80 feet wide and 240 feet long, completely destroying anything within the blast radius. Monsters immune to fire, which possess divine ranks, or which exceed your hitdice by more then 15 are immune to this bombarier.

[eftexar]

I haven't looked over it enough to judge the overall balance yet, but rolling thunder is overpowered. As written it could technically kill a deity (of a much higher level than you) in one hit.
May I suggest limiting instant destruction to targets of 10th level and below, while allowing a fortitude save to survive it with half remaining hp for those of higher level.

[toapat]

I haven't looked over it enough to judge the overall balance yet, but rolling thunder is overpowered. As written it could technically kill a deity (of a much higher level than you) in one hit.
May I suggest limiting instant destruction to targets of 10th level and below, while allowing a fortitude save to survive it with half remaining hp for those of higher level.

i added immunity to anything with divine ranks or that exceeds your hit dice by 15

[Tacitus]

The likelihood of a game taking place over the course of more than one year is small for a majority of campaigns, and you could technically do that two days in a row by the wording as presented.
Heh, though I just had another thought. If it doesn't affect fire-immune, what does it do to things that heal from fire?

The idea of a nuke is fine for a siege specialist, but auto-kill should not be included in D&D (and yes, I'm generally against auto-anything in D&D). I'd rather see like a 1/day nuke that deals a large amount of damage, perhaps with an option to add refined unobtanium and 'casting' time for a larger and more powerful boom.

[FlamingKobold]

The starting gold stuff is weird. I recommend against it.

8+int skills and 9 class skills with an int-focused class? That's probably an issue. At least give them all profession skills. Then add like 10 more.

While heavy weapons training is useful for a single class combat engineer, people who dip into it or PrC out are screwed. I'd say something closer to "an engineer is treated as though he had a base attack bonus equal to his levels of Master Combat Engineer plus any base attack bonus from other classes or racial hit dice (if any)." This gets out of the problem of having an Artificer 8/Master Combat Engineer 1 being forced to have a BAB of +1 when wielding weapons he/she is supposed to be good with.

Grenade is really, really week. It's similar to a warlock's eldritch blast, but there's reflex for half, no essences, other shapes, not magical and less damage. I'd recommend making it at will, but (maybe) having the progression start at level two. Also the damage seriously needs help. 5d6 reflex for half at level twenty as a standard action is pretty much the most useless thing ever. That's going to be maybe a bit better than a level 4 fighter in terms of damage. This ability needs to be changed significantly. You should give some sort of eldritch-essence type thing by giving grenades daze, stun, sonic, etc effects and more damage. Basically, make the Grenades cooler. Another interesting way to change it would be to make it so they add their int mod to damage and/or let them make a number of attacks equal to their BAB (after Heavy Weapons Training, of course)

With Summon Siege engine you have similar issues. It's cool and thematic but scales terrible. Past level 10, mundane weaponry like that is simply useless, even compared to a fighter of comparable level.

Find Weakness is cool and useful in certain situations. You might want to give them the ability to inflict crits against constructs.

Are the bonus feats from any list? Even if so, this is a sign of weak design. People want real class abilities that are cooler and more powerful than feats. It also makes sense with the fighter and wizard: fighters are supposed to become whatever type of martial character they want and wizards are supposed to study a lot and things. I don't even see the fluff justification here.

Rogue stuff: cool i guess.

Artillery Savant/Master: These are small, boring bonuses. Class features should let you do things, not just be a slightly larger but pre-chosen weapon focus.

Cluster Bolts: The penalty probably isn't needed. It's also phrased as though it's automatic - you should use words like "may" in there. Good against mooks, doesn't help much with scaling issues, especially since you're getting this so late.

Force Warheads: Ah, finally a unique, useful ability. But you're still only doing 4d6 damage. This means that one of your primary class abilities is now a little more effective than a magic missile by a sorcerer half your level, but probably fewer times per day. I know a sorcerer is pretty powerful, but magic missile definitely isn't. See my suggestions for the Grenade ability.

Rolling Thunder: Okay, just no. I mean, I know you probably like the ability and all and it's funny and stuff, but I probably don't have to point out why this is poor class design. Give them a capstone they can actually use.

The Mystic Siege preparations are mostly fairly meh and not very exciting. Also you need to be more specific. For example, what's the CL on the fireball one? (remember that that's max 10d6 damage). I assume the save is int-based but that's never stated.

Overall: Cool flavor but needs to be able to do more, scale better and have more abilities than just doing damage.

[toapat]

i should probably have put some explanation asto what the differences between the spell siege summons and the short time summons:

Basically, the ones from your workshop are ones you own, and can be enchanted, the ones from spells are unenchantable to make them less valuable then a weapon that you can make enchanted

Grenades should have a few upgrades, i know, i merged Cluster bombs and Force warheads

Find Weakness was granted Fort bypass for constructs and undead

Bonus Feats: except for the siege tower and battering ram, all siege engines are ranged, and benefit from the ranged feats. its mostly for space for all the ranged feats you can imagine

Cluster Bolts fires into squares, and so against a dragon, you can hit upto 64 times in a round

Rolling Thunder: Pretty much, i just enjoy the thought that these guys get to call in a B-52.

Siege Preps: Got a few described out, but being the last on the list, they got hurt badly by "Getitoveralready"itis


The likelihood of a game taking place over the course of more than one year is small for a majority of campaigns, and you could technically do that two days in a row by the wording as presented.
Heh, though I just had another thought. If it doesn't affect fire-immune, what does it do to things that heal from fire?

The idea of a nuke is fine for a siege specialist, but auto-kill should not be included in D&D (and yes, I'm generally against auto-anything in D&D). I'd rather see like a 1/day nuke that deals a large amount of damage, perhaps with an option to add refined unobtanium and 'casting' time for a larger and more powerful boom.

My problem is this effect is supposed to represent the total payload of a B-52 being dropped on the enemies, and a nuke has a much larger damage area, and kills anything within a mile of the epicenter without save, and cripples anything succeptible to con damage upto 4 miles out. granted it is an epic spell. Actually, i think ill replace it with earthquake

[Debihuman]

What's an M.O.A.B.?

Debby

[toapat]

What's an M.O.A.B.?

Debby

Massive Ordinance Air Burst or
Mother Of All Bombs

in this case its the second version, as its a bunker buster nuke

[radmelon]

Only started reading, but it is a really cool idea. Only thing that pops out at first is the wierd starting gold and weapon profs. The gold is understandable, but you should give them at elast simple proficiency. As it stands, they are unable to figure out how to work a dagger or a club. Which is pretty darn sad, really.

<edit> Also, 'workshop' isn't really defined at all. What is meant by it?