Horizon Walker

[Xenogears]

So I was skimming across the SRD and found this .... mostly terrible.... PrC. The Terrain Mastery abilities are mostly worthless and even most of the planar terrain masteries are pretty terrible. ONE however made me want to drool. The shifter planar terrain ability lets you Dimension Door for free every 1d4 rounds. Yay for casual teleportation. I was very excited. Then I realized you would need to take 6 levels in a PrC that basically gives you nothing useful for the first 5 levels in order to get it.

So basically what I want to know is if there is any easier (not too cheesy) way to get the same basic ability. I just want to be able to use teleport-like abilities without consuming (too many) resources. I mean this ability is literally the ideal of what I want but the cost is just too high....

[Cog]

Warlock can do this with a similar number of levels invested. Totemist can do it for much fewer levels, but with severely limited range.

[Xenogears]

Warlock can do this with a similar number of levels invested. Totemist can do it for much fewer levels, but with severely limited range.

Well low range is fine. I mostly want it to be a viable travel method on par speed-wise with normal movement but with X1000 coolness. What book is totemist in and how many levels does it take?

[GenericMook]

Totemist is in Magic of Incarnum.

[Qwertystop]

Um? I seem to remember Horizon Walker listed as one of the most OP PRCs for a meleer (tripper) if you're limited to Core.

[Xenogears]

Um? I seem to remember Horizon Walker listed as one of the most OP PRCs for a meleer (tripper) if you're limited to Core.

I can't imagine why. It gives absolutely zero trip related abilities. It's probably a different class with a similar name you are thinking of or something.

[demigodus]

nah, the Horizon Tripper (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?t=80415) does use Horizon Walker.

Doesn't improve tripping it seems, just happens to shore up a bunch of melee weaknesses (like being useless out of combat)

[Dusk Eclipse]

Look up the Horizon Tripper build (by our very own Saph), it is very effective while limited to core only.

If you just want the Dimension Door ability a two level dip into Totemist to bind Blink Shirt to your totem chakra gives you DDoor at will as a move action with 10+(10xEssentia invested) feet range.

A 3 level dip into swordsage gives you access to Shadow Jaunt which is Ex Ddoor with range 50 ft. usable every other round as a standard action.

EDIT: semi-swordsage'd

[Vaz]

If you have Complete Divine, speak to your Dm about replacing Terrain mastery with Ley Line from a Geomancer. +1 to Caster Level while inside Terrain?

[Gavinfoxx]

Third that you need to look up the Horizon Tripper build to see what this can do...

[herrhauptmann]

One of the big advantages of the horizon tripper build is that it does everything in core. Once you step away from core, as a melee build, it becomes easier to do everything it does, and at lower levels.

Also, check out the aligned planar trait. It should let you ignore the effects of things like blasphemy too.
and spells and abilities that harm those of the opposite alignment don’t affect you.

[Darth Stabber]

The cavernous planar trait is pretty decent (30' tremorsense). As far at the terrestrial ones go, the underground one works pretty well (60ft darkvision, or +60ft to existing darkvision).

[TaiLiu]

Hm.

The Jaunter PrC, from Expedition to the Demonweb Pits, is basically an entire prestige class dedicated to that concept.

Disadvantage: The feat requirement asks for the Spring Attack feat chain.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Expeditous Dodge isn't bad and you can get Mobility as an armour ehancement.

[Darth Stabber]

Expeditous Dodge isn't bad and you can get Mobility as an armour ehancement.

If you have any use for incarnum midnight dodge is pretty good. As is desert wind dodge.

[Dusk Eclipse]

Don't recall much about midnight dodge; but I am assuming the AC bonus is 1+essentia invested, in that case I agree it is not bad. Desert wind dodge might be interesting in a dervish build.

[Darth Stabber]

Don't recall much about midnight dodge; but I am assuming the AC bonus is 1+essentia invested, in that case I agree it is not bad. Desert wind dodge might be interesting in a dervish build.

No it's just essentia invested against a single target, so it gives you essentia and covers a common prerequisite.

[nedz]

I quite like Horizon Walker. It's not a high tier class but it does give you access to some unique abilities. It's best used on a skill based melee character obviously.

[IdleMuse]

It's one of those things that, when compared to the rest of the Core Only PrCs, comes out really well (hence the Horizon Tripper, very famous build). It pales slightly when you add ALL OF THE REST of 3.5, but frankly, I find reduced-source optimisation just as fun as all-the-sources optimisation, sometimes. Especially when you consider that for many games, the restriction WILL be Core-only, or Core-plus-the-couple-of-books-the-DM-has-in-hardcover.

[Piggy Knowles]

The thing about Horizon Walker in core is that it's fairly easy to qualify for (a ranger dip covers everything you need, and ranger is a fairly easy dip for a martial character in core), and it gives SOME useful abilities, rather than none at all. Feats in core are too limited to make twenty levels in fighter worth it. Barbarian either only requires a small dip, or needs 11+ levels in core, so unless you're playing a dedicated barbarian build then more levels there aren't really doing much for you.

Horizon Walker isn't inherently good - it's honestly a pretty mediocre class, even in core. But what else are you going to take? May as well use it to nab some unique abilities. Darkvision, tremorsense and limited teleportation don't hurt to have, fatigue immunity shores up the downside of rage, and at least it has full BAB.

[Answerer]

Barbarian/Horizon Walker for Desert Mastery's immunity to fatigue is nice.

[Clericzilla]

I would rather have Horizon Walker than the Dwarven Defender (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/dwarvenDefender.htm)

[Answerer]

I would rather have Horizon Walker than the Dwarven Defender (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/prestigeClasses/dwarvenDefender.htm)
That is easily among the worst of all prestige classes. Worse than Green Star Adept, worse than Alienist, worse than Metamind. It's so bad, in fact, that two homebrewers independently used it as an example of atrocious design when writing treatises on prestige classes.

[Qwertystop]

Really? I mean, I'm not denying it's bad, but at least you have the choice of not using the makes-you-worse ability. Green Star Adept doesn't give you the choice of not eating your loot.

[sreservoir]

Really? I mean, I'm not denying it's bad, but at least you have the choice of not using the makes-you-worse ability. Green Star Adept doesn't give you the choice of not eating your loot.

you mean the built-in measure to attempt to save you from taking the class?

[herrhauptmann]

The cavernous planar trait is pretty decent (30' tremorsense). As far at the terrestrial ones go, the underground one works pretty well (60ft darkvision, or +60ft to existing darkvision).

Does that work if you've got darkvision from an item?

[Cog]

Does that work if you've got darkvision from an item?
It should. It would revert to the default 60' if you took the item off, though.

[Drelua]

Speaking of Horizon Walker, what are people's thoughts on the Pathfinder version. I'm seeing a lot of pros and cons, and I can't really decide if it's better or worse. I'll list what I can think of, though I'm all but certain I'll miss most of the important stuff. :smalltongue:

Cons:
-Entry delayed by a level
-Some of the best abilities, like DDoor and Darkvision, are split up so you have to take a terrain mastery and dominance to get them
-Speaking of DDoor, it's now limited to 3+WIS per day

Pros:
-DDoor in 3 levels rather than 6
-6+INT skills
-Complete immunity to fatigue and exhaustion in three levels, making for a pretty good Barbarian dip
-metric crapton of favoured terrains, getting as many as nine on a pure Ranger, for a possible +18, though spreading it out is of course much better

I'm thinking of using this for a Dwarf Ranger that might dip Barbarian, thoughts? I think the most important changes I can see are the ones to DDoor.

[JaronK]

That is easily among the worst of all prestige classes. Worse than Green Star Adept, worse than Alienist, worse than Metamind. It's so bad, in fact, that two homebrewers independently used it as an example of atrocious design when writing treatises on prestige classes.

Nothing is worse than the Shining Blade of Herioneous.

And Swordsage is a great class for endless teleporting... Shadow Jaunt can be had by level 3!

JaronK

[nedz]

Nothing is worse than the Shining Blade of Herioneous.

And Swordsage is a great class for endless teleporting... Shadow Jaunt can be had by level 3!

JaronK

I think we all have our lists of poor PrCs: Arcane Archer, Order of the Bow Initiate, ... . But this is probably best left for another thread.

[Killer Angel]

Well, the excellent Horizon Tripper has already been mentioned, but...


The Terrain Mastery abilities are mostly worthless

This is not fair.
Underground and Desert are nice (60' stackable darkvision, immune to fatigue).
Even Hills is not bad: in core only, there aren't many ways to improve your listen checks.

[nedz]

Then there are the three very nice planar terrain masteries, the other three are meh though. Still the class does have RAW support for home-brewing new ones — how often do you see that ?

[IdleMuse]

It's not bad for sneaky types in core either. Shifting can set up good flanks, there's masteries for a lot of sneaky skill bonuses.

[herrhauptmann]

Then there are the three very nice planar terrain masteries, the other three are meh though. Still the class does have RAW support for home-brewing new ones — how often do you see that ?

Play it in Eberron, and you have a reason to make a Dream planar terrain. Maybe a +4 to your Lucid Dreaming checks?

3.X does have some lines that look like they're telling you to make up your own rule, like in bag of holding/portable hole interactions. "Taking one extradimensional space into another can have a bad reaction" or however they say it.
Which is a problem, since only those two interactions are explicitly described in 3.X, the rest are up to the DM. Occasionally makes for some bad arguments here on the forum.
Beyond that? I think there's one with vampires in the MM. That you can present a mirror/holy symbol like a cleric making a turning attempt, and hold off a vampire, even if you don't have Turn Undead.
Both of those are pretty much lines from older editions that got left in.

So yeah, you're right. Beyond the researching of spells, there's not many cases where you're told outright it's okay to homebrew.

[nedz]

Or maybe a time plane one: Free Haste/Slow — self only. Not OP — you can get an item for this.
Or perhaps a scaled plane one: Free Enlarge / Reduce person — self only. (Janni can do this).
Ed: Or an Astral one: Free Quicken on your SLA's. OK — maybe this is OP.
Or perhaps some means of manipulating portals ? Very situational, unless you can open them.
Ed(2): We already have Fire and Cold elemental based ones — though these are a bit meh.
Earth: Earth Glide
Air: Fly at base move.