PDA

View Full Version : "I have been sent back until my task is finished." (3.5 Prestige Class, PEACH)



Noctis Vigil
2012-05-04, 10:47 AM
Dedicated Hunter

Some people live for the hunt. Others die for the hunt. Still others live and die many times for the hunt. But few are those who gain a special power over the foes who have killed them before on the hunt. Those few are the Dedicated Hunters.

Requirements:
Feats: Track, Endurance, Diehard
Skills: Search 4 Ranks, Spot 4 Ranks, Listen 4 Ranks, Survival 8 Ranks
Special: Must have been unwillingly killed by a foe you were tracking for more than a day, and brought back to life afterwards.

Class Skills: As Ranger, plus whichever Knowledge skill the foe that killed you falls under (see class requirements).

Hit Die: D8

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special|Spellcasting

1st|
+1|
+2|
+2|
+0|Favored Foe +2, Grudge|-

2nd|
+2|
+3|
+3|
+0|Favored Foe +4|+1 level of spellcasting

3rd|
+3|
+3|
+3|
+1|Favored Foe +6, Foe Sense|+1 level of spellcasting

4th|
+4|
+4|
+4|
+1|Favored Foe +8|+1 level of spellcasting

5th|
+5|
+4|
+4|
+1|Favored Foe +10, Resist the Foe|+1 level of spellcasting[/table]

Proficiencies: A Dedicated Hunter gains no new proficiencies, however when facing their Favored Foe, they will do anything within their power to stop them with whatever is at hand, and suffer no penalties against them when using a weapon with which they aren't proficient or an improvised weapon.

Favored Foe: Dedicated Hunters never forget the foe that brought them down, and hold a grudge against them for the rest of their lives. This ability functions as the Ranger's Favored Enemy class ability, with the following restrictions and changes. The type chosen must be the enemy type that killed them as a prerequisite for the class (so Dragon if he was killed by a black dragon, Undead if a lich, et cetera). If the enemy that killed him had more than one type, you pick one upon entering this class; once chosen, this can never be changed. The bonus granted is the same as Favored Enemy, but also applies to all attack rolls against, all Knowledge checks about, all saves against, and AC against their Favored Foe.

If a Dedicated Hunter has already or takes levels of Ranger, and takes or has his Favored Foe as a Favored Enemy, treat the Favored Enemy bonus as a Favored Foe bonus (so if a Ranger with a Favored Enemy +4 against Dragons gains Favored Foe +2 against Dragons, treat him as having Favored Foe +6 against Dragons).

Grudge: A Dedicated Hunter holds a strong grudge against the foe type that killed him. As such, he is incapable of holding back when he attacks them, and always deals lethal damage to them if possible.

Spellcasting: Starting at 2nd level, and at each level thereafter, the character gains new spells per day as if he had also gained a level in one spellcasting class he belonged to before taking the Dedicated Hunter prestige class. He does not, however, gain any other benefit a character of that class would have gained. If the character had more than one caster class before becoming a Dedicated Hunter, he must decide to which class he adds each level for the purpose of determining spells per day.

Foe Sense: You are acutely aware of your Favored Foe's presence. Starting at 3rd level, whenever one of your Favored Foes gets within a radius equal to 10 feet times the sum of your Ranger and Dedicated Hunter levels, you automatically know it's there, and in roughly which direction, though you do not know exactly how far away it is, what it looks like or what it is capable of, only that it is there. This is an extraordinary ability, and cannot be suppressed by any means. It can be blocked however. Any ability that specifically blocks what one thinks (such as mindblank spell or the Vow of Poverty's thought-protecting ability) will stop this ability.

Resist the Foe: At 5th level, a Dedicated Hunter can resist anything his Favored Foe might throw at him. If he has no Spell Resistance or Power Resistance, he gains Spell Resistance and Power Resistance equal to 20 plus his Favored Foe bonus plus 1/4 his levels in Ranger and Dedicated Hunter, but only against spells and powers used by his Favored Foe. If he has Spell Resistance or Power Resistance already, he may instead add his Favored Foe bonus plus 1/4 his levels in Ranger and Dedicated Hunter combined to his existing resistance against his Favored Foe if doing so would grant him a higher bonus. So if a Ranger11/Dedicated Hunter5 has SR equal to 15 plus their class level, they could add their Favored Foe bonus plus four to that, as doing so would be a greater bonus than the standard bonus. Finally, unlike normal SR, this resistance works against supernatural abilities.

madock345
2012-05-04, 10:52 AM
I really like the Class you have here. very nice.

I would let them sense their favored foe, you could flavor it as some kind of sensitivity because they were their when you died (or something)

Noctis Vigil
2012-05-04, 10:58 AM
You mean a sort of detect evil sort of thing? Or a "you know when your Favored Foe is thiiiis close" sorta thing?

madock345
2012-05-04, 10:59 AM
You mean a sort of detect evil sort of thing? Or a "you know when your Favored Foe is thiiiis close" sorta thing?

Yeah, something like that. like "you are aware of any Favored Foe within _ feet"

Noctis Vigil
2012-05-04, 11:06 AM
That sounds reasonable. Thanks for the suggestion! It'll be up in a sec, then tell me what you think about it.

pffh
2012-05-04, 11:12 AM
I would make resist foe a lot more powerful. As it stands right now it's 20 SR starting at level 11 (if you get a bonus feat) or 12 (if you don't get a bonus feat) against a single type of enemy.

I'd at least double the bonus or make it SR= HD+10 (or 15 or even 20)

Noctis Vigil
2012-05-04, 11:15 AM
Keep in mind that if you take levels of Ranger you can keep increasing that bonus. I do see your point, though. Do you think it 20 + Favored Foe bonus is too much? That was my original idea, but I thought it was too powerful and lowered it.

TuggyNE
2012-05-04, 06:39 PM
Note that this is a prestige class, not a base class, so please change the title :smallwink:.


Foe Sense: You are acutely aware of your Favored Foe's presence. Starting at 3rd level, whenever one of your Favored Foes gets within a radius equal to 10 feet times the sum of your Ranger and Dedicated Hunter levels, you automatically know it's there, and in roughly which direction, though you do not know exactly how far away it is, what it looks like or what it is capable of, only that it is there. This is an extraordinary ability, and cannot be suppressed by any means. It can be blocked however. Any ability that specifically blocks what one thinks (such as mindblank spell or the Vow of Poverty's thought-protecting ability) will stop this ability.

How does this interact with mindless creatures?


Resist the Foe: At 5th level, a Dedicated hunter can resist anything his Favored Foe might throw at him. He gains Spell Resistance and Power Resistance equal to 20 plus his Favored Foe bonus, but only against spells and powers used by his Favored Foe. This resistance stacks with any other SR or PR the Dedicated Hunter may have from other sources.

So... a Pixie Ranger 11/Dedicated Hunter 5 with maximized FE: Undead would have SR 59 against, say, liches? This seems brokenly good. (And that's not counting LA buyoff or the BoED feat to increase SR, either.)

I suggest changing it to be based on character level or existing SR, whichever is higher, with the FE bonus then added on top.

Daverin
2012-05-05, 12:55 AM
Not sure why no one else has pointed this out, but this is a prestige class, not a base class. You may want to change the title.

That said, this looks intriguing. If nothing else, I suppose that only losing 1 caster level for this while getting quite a bit of firepower against specific foes can make this a good, if situational, PrC to take, which is definitely a valid route to take with a PrC, imo. Good job! :smallsmile:

Noctis Vigil
2012-05-05, 01:40 AM
Thanks for catching my title goof, guys. Not sure how I flubbed that up. :smalleek:


So... a Pixie Ranger 11/Dedicated Hunter 5 with maximized FE: Undead would have SR 59 against, say, liches? This seems brokenly good. (And that's not counting LA buyoff or the BoED feat to increase SR, either.)

No, they would have SR67; 31 from race, 36 from Resist Foe. But then, the pixie already has high enough SR to resist almost anything the lich can use before taking this class at all, so it's a pretty poor example to balance against. Yes, it is possible to get stupid high SR and PR against a small, limited list of enemies. I don't think it breaks the game, since the whole point is that you have 5 or more whole class levels geared towards killing that specific foe set. Against a normal Wizard working with said lich, the Pixie's SR would be 31 as per it's race.

Also, Foe Sense works fine against mindless foes. It's not thought sensing so much as presence sensing; I just couldn't think of a way to make it not broken if it wasn't blockable.

@Daverin: The goal was to make him focused and limited in scope, but very powerful within that scope. I'm glad you like it. :smallsmile:

TuggyNE
2012-05-05, 02:51 AM
No, they would have SR67; 31 from race, 36 from Resist Foe. But then, the pixie already has high enough SR to resist almost anything the lich can use before taking this class at all, so it's a pretty poor example to balance against. Yes, it is possible to get stupid high SR and PR against a small, limited list of enemies. I don't think it breaks the game, since the whole point is that you have 5 or more whole class levels geared towards killing that specific foe set. Against a normal Wizard working with said lich, the Pixie's SR would be 31 as per it's race.

Derp, I was counting the FF bonus wrong for some reason.


Anyway, the issue I have is that it makes existing SR absurd, since it's conceptually similar to doubling AC with a single class feature. (Literally doubling.) It's fine to have good SR against a particular subset of enemies, but to go from "difficult to hit without considerable Spell Penetration work" to "impossible to hit even with assay spell resistance" I don't think that's a good change.

A straight Human Wizard 20 can swing a CL 25 vs. SR with two feats and an item. Against 31 SR, that's more than a 50% chance of penetrating -- good protection, but not perfect.
Now add the current phrasing of Resist the Foe, assume the FF is Humanoid (Human), and the wizard cannot affect the pixie's 67 SR at all, not even with considerably more effort (the aforementioned assay spell resistance, true casting, etc).
On the other hand, my suggestion would give only a +16 bonus, which when you come down to it is still probably too much: SR 47 at ECL 20 is an awful lot, even if it only works against some foes. Still, the wizard would be able to assay and bypass it for the most part.

(Yes, I know the caster could use no-SR spells, or just Dweomerkeeper them into Su, or cheese the caster level up to nigh-infinite levels, or something, but pushing op levels higher isn't such a great idea IMO.)

In short, slapping on a bonus that breaks a d20-RNG twice over all by itself is not a Good Thing(TM).


Also, Foe Sense works fine against mindless foes. It's not thought sensing so much as presence sensing; I just couldn't think of a way to make it not broken if it wasn't blockable.

Hmm, OK; I'll see if I can suggest a good tweak. It's pretty reasonable as is, and honestly, not being able to detect, say, zombies would be pretty lame. Just feels a little off to me somehow.

1
Oh, one more thing: can you take this class multiple times for different FEs? Because I think that might be pretty awesome.

Noctis Vigil
2012-05-05, 11:50 AM
A straight Human Wizard 20 can swing a CL 25 vs. SR with two feats and an item. Against 31 SR, that's more than a 50% chance of penetrating -- good protection, but not perfect.
Now add the current phrasing of Resist the Foe, assume the FF is Humanoid (Human), and the wizard cannot affect the pixie's 67 SR at all, not even with considerably more effort (the aforementioned assay spell resistance, true casting, etc).
On the other hand, my suggestion would give only a +16 bonus, which when you come down to it is still probably too much: SR 47 at ECL 20 is an awful lot, even if it only works against some foes. Still, the wizard would be able to assay and bypass it for the most part.

The problem I have here is that you're assuming anyone taking this will already have SR. I am coming at this assuming whoever takes this won't have SR, because there are only so many ways to get SR to begin with. If I follow your suggestion, the average character (assuming Ranger15/Dedicate Hunter5) will end up at level 20 with SR20, which isn't even a speed bump to your everyday Wizard. Heck, as you said, SR47 wouldn't stand in his way much at level 20. This guy is supposed to be the best at killing his chosen foes; making him be able to take on casters is essential. Remember, ideal base for this PrC is Ranger, a primarily martial class. I don't want this on even footing with his Favored Foe, I want him to be able to laugh at his Favored Foe as everything they can possibly throw at them bounces off him harmlessly, hence the +10 bonus to AC and saves and the +30SR and PR. And frankly, I can list several spells off the top of my head that bypass SR anyways, so it's not like this strips the casters and manifesters of their ability to still be useful. Heck, at level 20 you can Summon Monster IX. Boom, you have minions who can kill him for you while you watch.

Ideal balance is never "but this makes casters less useful", it's "this makes melee useful against casters". If you can make this guy still able to be better than the average caster after reducing his SR and PR to equal his FF bonus, please tell me; that is the goal.

TuggyNE
2012-05-05, 05:34 PM
The problem I have here is that you're assuming anyone taking this will already have SR. I am coming at this assuming whoever takes this won't have SR, because there are only so many ways to get SR to begin with. If I follow your suggestion, the average character (assuming Ranger15/Dedicate Hunter5) will end up at level 20 with SR20, which isn't even a speed bump to your everyday Wizard.

No, my suggestion would give him 36 SR: the greater of 20 base or existing SR (20) + FF bonus (16) = 36.

20 SR at ECL 20 wouldn't be worth the paper it was printed on, no :smallwink:


Heck, as you said, SR47 wouldn't stand in his way much at level 20.

Er, what? I was assuming a moderate-op enemy caster who is now forced to put additional investment (short-duration spell slots, feats) into overcoming SR. SR 47 is unusually good for ECL 20. By "assay and bypass it for the most part" that's "spend a spell slot and have a ~80% chance of making CL checks".

For comparison, dragons around CR 20 have SR 28-32 for the most part, with one outlier at 34 and a couple at 25-27. Most other monsters of the same CR range have the same SR range.

The only way I can think of at the moment for a PC to get this kind of SR (47) would be to use CL-pumping cheese and (DMM:persisted?) spell resistance.

In short, even SR 47 is a large obstacle at 20 for low- to mid-op casters.


This guy is supposed to be the best at killing his chosen foes; making him be able to take on casters is essential. Remember, ideal base for this PrC is Ranger, a primarily martial class. I don't want this on even footing with his Favored Foe, I want him to be able to laugh at his Favored Foe as everything they can possibly throw at them bounces off him harmlessly, hence the +10 bonus to AC and saves and the +30SR and PR. And frankly, I can list several spells off the top of my head that bypass SR anyways, so it's not like this strips the casters and manifesters of their ability to still be useful. Heck, at level 20 you can Summon Monster IX. Boom, you have minions who can kill him for you while you watch.

Fair enough, but keep in mind the "rubberband effect": giving a character lolno bonuses tends to start an arms race, and casters will win any arms race, if they set their minds to it. Significant bonuses are one thing, but forcing optimize-or-do-nothing means DM frustration and probably eventually player frustration when the lich breaks out maximized empowered twin split ray ocular invisible city repeat arcane thesis orb of force. And the character dies, no save. Please don't go there.

Note that the AC bonus is likely fine, though the bonus to saves is rather suspect. It's mostly the stacking SR I'm worried about.


Ideal balance is never "but this makes casters less useful", it's "this makes melee useful against casters". If you can make this guy still able to be better than the average caster after reducing his SR and PR to equal his FF bonus, please tell me; that is the goal.

The problem here is that making a mundane (or even half-caster) equal to casters is not a simple task at all, and more numbers aren't going to do the job*. They can make things somewhat more pleasant within the confines of a gentleman's agreement, but if you go too far with the raw numbers, that agreement breaks down.

Finally, I am not personally of the opinion that Tier 1/2 is a good balance point to aim for. :smallyuk: Instead, I'd prefer to balance lower tier classes up to, say, 3 if possible, and use gentleman's agreements, alternate casting classes, or whatever to remove the high tiers from dominance.


*See also: monks and most attempted monk and fighter fixes.

Noctis Vigil
2012-05-05, 08:38 PM
No, my suggestion would give him 36 SR: the greater of 20 base or existing SR (20) + FF bonus (16) = 36.

20 SR at ECL 20 wouldn't be worth the paper it was printed on, no :smallwink:

*snip*

The problem here is that making a mundane (or even half-caster) equal to casters is not a simple task at all, and more numbers aren't going to do the job*. They can make things somewhat more pleasant within the confines of a gentleman's agreement, but if you go too far with the raw numbers, that agreement breaks down.

Ah, I misunderstood your suggestion. I compromised slightly on the edit, tell me how it looks now. It's slightly higher than your suggestion, but far lower than I originally had it if you already have resistance.

And I can see your argument. Numbers only do so much. I've not much of a head for numbers, so your arguing is helping a great deal, thank you. :smallsmile:

TuggyNE
2012-05-07, 07:20 PM
Ah, I misunderstood your suggestion. I compromised slightly on the edit, tell me how it looks now. It's slightly higher than your suggestion, but far lower than I originally had it if you already have resistance.

Yeah, that looks much more sensible. :smallcool:

I would personally perhaps reduce the bonus to existing SR by half, like this:
20 + FF
- OR -
existing + 1/2 FF

and then change the no-SR case so it scales by character level. But that's not as important a change; it's mostly just polish.


And I can see your argument. Numbers only do so much. I've not much of a head for numbers, so your arguing is helping a great deal, thank you. :smallsmile:

No problem, and I'm glad we worked out the difference. :smallsmile:

1

One more thing: currently there are several places that specifically mention the Ranger class; given the ACFs available for other classes that give Favored Enemy (Druid at least that I know of), as well as the possibility of other classes granting this by default, it might be preferable to generalize this to "levels in a class granting Favored Enemy" or something like that. (This also prevents odd cases where a Ranger trades out their Favored Enemy for an ACF.)

Noctis Vigil
2012-05-07, 07:41 PM
Actually, the whole point of the way I have the ability scale at the moment is to keep it from going up if you stop being a hunter-type class. So if you keep getting FE bonus, your SR and PR will keep going up, but otherwise it's a flat number.

Also: there's an ACF to give Druid Favored Enemy? :smalleek: What book is that? I'd swap that for some of the other stuff they have any day. As for the wording, it's supposed to be a Ranger PrC. I've been thinking I should add a prerequisite that limits it to Ranger. Thoughts on that?

Yitzi
2012-05-07, 07:53 PM
If he was killed by a demon, does he get outsider (evil) or outsider (chaotic), or does he choose, or does he get both?

This indicates that someone will usually get better spell/power resistance if they didn't have some at first. Is that intentional? Because it doesn't seem to make much sense.

Noctis Vigil
2012-05-07, 10:27 PM
Good catch, Yitzi. Clarification has been added for creatures with two subtypes.

Additionally, I actually remembered to add a "whichever is better" clause to the SR now. Again, thanks for the catch, Yitzi.

TuggyNE
2012-05-08, 06:19 PM
Actually, the whole point of the way I have the ability scale at the moment is to keep it from going up if you stop being a hunter-type class. So if you keep getting FE bonus, your SR and PR will keep going up, but otherwise it's a flat number.

Hmm, the scaling seems a bit wonky, though. You can get as much as SR 34 at ECL 10 (which is absurdly high, and rather difficult to counteract at that level), but then it only improves very slowly -- only getting to SR 38 with another 10 levels of ranger (which is a bit over average for ECL 20, but not absurdly so).

Generally, an average SR is 11+ECL; a good SR is maybe 2-6 points higher, and an amazing SR is 6-10 points higher.


Also: there's an ACF to give Druid Favored Enemy? :smalleek: What book is that? I'd swap that for some of the other stuff they have any day. As for the wording, it's supposed to be a Ranger PrC. I've been thinking I should add a prerequisite that limits it to Ranger. Thoughts on that?

Unearthed Arcana (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/classes/variantCharacterClasses.htm#druid) has it.

Honestly, I would figure -- if you have Favored Enemy, you should be eligible.

Yitzi
2012-05-08, 07:52 PM
About the SR and PR; perhaps say that he gets favored foe bonus+17 and anything 10 or less on the CL check to penetrate it is an automatic failure; if he already has non-level-dependent SR or PR, he gets to add his favored foe bonus to it if that's better, and if he has level-dependent SR or PR he gets to add the favored foe bonus up to a maximum of 10.
Against racial abilities, the SR or PR applies even against supernatural abilities and gets a +10 bonus.

Noctis Vigil
2012-05-08, 11:27 PM
Made some minor changes to Resit the Foe to make it scale, as requested. Also made it resist supernatural abilities as per your suggestion, Yitzi.