Good, Evil PRC's?

[CyberThread]

Seems Evil PRC's are really lackluster , anyone seen any decent ones?

[Nettlekid]

I, uh, I thiiiiink...Not totally sure, but somewhere someone said something about a little something called Ur-Priest. Dunno if it's any good or not. I think Cancer Mage also applies, for utter brokenness. And people have made some pretty deadly Soul Eater builds using Warshaper. Let's not forget Beholder Mage, if that counts. Ooh, and Anima Mage.

[Jack Zander]

Is Ur-Priest really evil only? Maybe I'm thinking of something else. Are they the one that rejects the gods?

[Nettlekid]

Yes and yes. I guess rejection of the gods (or probably more of the stealing-the-gods-powers thing) is inherently Evil.

Honestly, alignment-based restrictions annoy me. I want an Evil Malconvoker. Or a Neutral Assassin (I know they made an April Fool's Good one).

[Jack Zander]

Fharlanghn! I hate alignment restrictions. What if your Ur-Priest only stole power from the evil deities and used it to fight their followers?

[Coidzor]

Ur-Priest is pretty sweet.

[Urpriest]

Fharlanghn! I hate alignment restrictions. What if your Ur-Priest only stole power from the evil deities and used it to fight their followers?

It's arguable whether you can choose, and stealing is inherently evil.

Plus, why not be evil? Urpriests can cast Good-aligned spells, after all. Though I suppose you're missing other synergies...

Anyway, Tainted Scholar (and Subverted Psion) are evil and hilariously broken.

[Asrrin]

While assassin might not be the most flashy PrC ever, it definitely gives rogue types a big boost with decent spellcasting and class features I'd argue it bumps them up to Tier 3 easily.

Also, as an aside, the campaign I'm currently running, I managed to convince the DM to house rule the assassin requirement to "Any non-good" rather than "Any evil" so our party rogue keeps up with the party at later levels.

[Gerrtt]

I'd call Illithid Savant a good "evil" PRC. Quite good...and what's more evil than eating brains? Eating children's brains. They have feats too...right?

[SeekAndDestroy]

Disciple of Dispater springs to mind.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Fiend of Possession is pretty nice though it's even better as a cohort.

[Ace Nex]

Assassin is fun, especially when they get some of their fancy spells. Blackguard I must admit is a little dull, but if used right can garner a small measure of worth. My favorite of the evil PRCs is Disciple of Dispater for the best crit build you can make. Aside from that, a lot of the "Evil Only" I agree is underwhelming.

[herrhauptmann]

It's arguable whether you can choose, and stealing is inherently evil.

Plus, why not be evil? Urpriests can cast Good-aligned spells, after all. Though I suppose you're missing other synergies...

Anyway, Tainted Scholar (and Subverted Psion) are evil and hilariously broken.

Adaptation rules allow you to be Good if you serve a dead Good deity. But since that's mostly covered in Lost Empires of Faerun which grants you feats like "Servant of the fallen," you don't need Ur-priest to get your Mystryl love going.
Heck, you can be a (anti)paladin of a dead deity with that feat.

[Omegonthesane]

Yes and yes. I guess rejection of the gods (or probably more of the stealing-the-gods-powers thing) is inherently Evil.
This is a sign of how D&D morality steadfastly refuses to make sense, seeing as how 1/3 of the gods are actively Evil and a further 1/3 have no strong opposition to Evil. Many of the writers were probably familiar with and pandering towards a common moral system in which godliness is literally identical to goodliness, and thus failed to realise that this cannot be the case in a world with evil gods.


Honestly, alignment-based restrictions annoy me. I want an Evil Malconvoker. Or a Neutral Assassin (I know they made an April Fool's Good one).
Alignment isn't a big enough deal to not houserule though - the April Fool's Avenger made that point admirably. (And was technically Any Non-Chaotic rather than Any Good, but whatever.)

I argued this in a thread a while ago w.r.t. the Dread Necromancer - I didn't object to them wanting to play a Good version, I objected to them thinking that it had to follow that only a positive-energy based DN could possibly be Good, despite how mindless undead only follow orders in D&D and thus are no more evil once created than a mundane sword.

Linked: a more in-depth discussion of the inconsistency of necromancy in D&D, followed by a sourcebook (http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?t=34248)


It's arguable whether you can choose, and stealing is inherently evil.
But depriving Evil gods of resources is inherently Good, and stealing isn't evil enough that you can't use the stolen resources to perform good deeds far in excess of the crime of stealing them and thus remain outright Good, let alone Neutral.

The way the class is written there is nothing to imply they only target the Good Gods. So either you can choose and you nick your powers from the Lower Planes only, or you can't choose and it logically follows that you are nicking from gods at random, which will all balance out eventually unless your DM fate is actively, directly, maliciously screwing with you.


Plus, why not be evil? Urpriests can cast Good-aligned spells, after all. Though I suppose you're missing other synergies...
Because contrary to popular belief most people, even power-hungry ones, have too much basic decency to dedicate themselves to an Evil lifestyle.


While assassin might not be the most flashy PrC ever, it definitely gives rogue types a big boost with decent spellcasting and class features I'd argue it bumps them up to Tier 3 easily.

Also, as an aside, the campaign I'm currently running, I managed to convince the DM to house rule the assassin requirement to "Any non-good" rather than "Any evil" so our party rogue keeps up with the party at later levels.

...you mean he couldn't be Evil and still want to help the friends and comrades to whom he owes his past and future survival and progression? Heck, Belkar managed it.

[sonofzeal]

Fiend of Possession is pretty nice though it's even better as a cohort.
All three of the Fiend PrCs are... extremely powerful, or potentially abuseable (not the same), or both.

[mangosta71]

Tainted Scholar is possibly the most abusable PrC ever, assuming you make yourself undead before you die/go insane from massive taint. "I have 40 bonus level 9 spells per day, and the save DC is over 200."

[Asrrin]

...you mean he couldn't be Evil and still want to help the friends and comrades to whom he owes his past and future survival and progression? Heck, Belkar managed it.

This is her first D&D game and all of our characters started not knowing anything about the others. Our only common bond was a contract to guard a merchant caravan that is no longer with us. We haven't yet established a whole lot of inter party relationships as we've only had 2 sessions so far.

[Urpriest]

Because contrary to popular belief most people, even power-hungry ones, have too much basic decency to dedicate themselves to an Evil lifestyle.


It's not a lifestyle! I was born this way! :smallbiggrin:

[Larkas]

Just between us, I can think of many more terrible "good only" classes than "evil only" classes... And Paladin doesn't even scratch the surface. Think "Apostle of Peace"* brokenness level.

* Even though I do like the class, it needs some serious tinkering to not break the game.

[Omegonthesane]

This is her first D&D game and all of our characters started not knowing anything about the others. Our only common bond was a contract to guard a merchant caravan that is no longer with us. We haven't yet established a whole lot of inter party relationships as we've only had 2 sessions so far.

OK, so the friends argument isn't quite as strong, but how many other sources of support could she go to? Rogues & assassins aren't self-sufficient at any level in terms of having enough personal security to not die, to put it starkly - unless there was a powerful and relatively trustworthy group for her to defect to, betraying the party is not likely to result in anything but death, and there's nothing moral about noticing that.

[sonofzeal]

Just between us, I can think of many more terrible "good only" classes than "evil only" classes... And Paladin doesn't even scratch the surface. Think "Apostle of Peace"* brokenness level.

* Even though I do like the class, it needs some serious tinkering to not break the game.
Seriously?


Game-breaking Good Classes
Apostle of Peace (nominal; it's more VoPeace that's so powerful rather than the class itself)
Sentinal of Bharrai
Emissaries of Barachiel
Rainbow Servant

Game-breaking Evil Classes
Tainted Scholar
Soul Eater
Thrall of Juiblex
Telflammar Shadowlord
Ur-Priest
Walker in the Waste
Dreadmaster
Beholder Mage
Illithid Savant
Disciple of Dispater
Fiend of Posession
Fiend of Corruption
Fiend of Blasphemy

...seems a bit one-sided to me...

[Larkas]

Broken doesn't mean game-breaking in this case. It means a class hard or impossible to play properly. Think "Truenamer broken".

[sonofzeal]

Broken doesn't mean game-breaking in this case. It means a class hard or impossible to play properly. Think "Truenamer broken".
What's your list, then?

[Urpriest]

Dreadmaster


Ooh, that's one I've never seen before. It's like a Divine Thrallherd...with full casting...awesome!

[Than]

Anyway, Tainted Scholar (and Subverted Psion) are evil and hilariously broken.

What do they call it when the ninjas were here yesterday?

Chalk up another vote for Subverted Psion. Especially if you start as Erudite. Deifically if you start as Spell-to-Power Erudite.

And just because the web enhancement doesn't say it, I will. Moderate and Severe depravity and corruption effects give you a feat, each, in return.

[Coidzor]

Ooh, that's one I've never seen before. It's like a Divine Thrallherd...with full casting...awesome!

That really is great. I'm surprised I haven't run into it before. Granted, I think it requires worshiping Bane so that might explain it.

[Pickford]

OK, so the friends argument isn't quite as strong, but how many other sources of support could she go to? Rogues & assassins aren't self-sufficient at any level in terms of having enough personal security to not die, to put it starkly - unless there was a powerful and relatively trustworthy group for her to defect to, betraying the party is not likely to result in anything but death, and there's nothing moral about noticing that.

Evil aligned characters just need to find selfish reasons for sticking it out with the party. i.e. Use them to further your own ends, don't stick yourself out for them unless not doing so would be worse for you, etc...

On some level alignment in d&d is just about 'how' your actions are rationalized, not what those actions are. (Yes, there are exceptions but those are pretty limited).

[Larkas]

What's your list, then?

Well, just from the BoED:

Apostle of Peace
Skylord
Stalker of Kharash
Troubadour of Stars
Wonderworker

I must say that I had to look harder than I thought, though. Maybe I was acting biased? :smallredface:

[Andezzar]

What's broken about the skylord? Is it Truenamer broken? As far as I can see it is not overpowered. 1/2 casting and no increase to caster level should be enough of a nerf to counter nearly any and all other class features.

[sonofzeal]

Well, just from the BoED:

Apostle of Peace
Skylord
Stalker of Kharash
Troubadour of Stars
Wonderworker

I must say that I had to look harder than I thought, though. Maybe I was acting biased? :smallredface:
Apostle of Peace is just plain poorly-constructed, so that fits. Wonderworker's pretty terrible, but more just a bad idea than "broken" in any sense of the word. At absolute worst, it could be viable for epic characters who don't care about spell progression any more but could still use bonus spells and exalted feats.

And Skylord, Stalker of Kharash, and Troubadour of Stars? I mean, they're generally poor, but I didn't see anything horrible. There's a lot of poor PrCs out there. Stalker in particular seems completely tame unless you consider Favoured Enemy: Evil to be absurdly cheesy... which seems like a really odd thing to pick on.

[Larkas]

What's broken about the skylord? Is it Truenamer broken? As far as I can see it is not overpowered. 1/2 casting and no increase to caster level should be enough of a nerf to counter nearly any and all other class features.

A class meant for Rangers that delay the spell progression and doesn't progress the animal companion at all? It seems like a very hard to play class to me. Though, thinking again, it might be useful for a Fighter to get a way to fly, though you'd be mostly ignoring the spellcasting part unless you get some fast progression spellcasting class in the mix, and you'd probably be nixing 9th level spells anyways. Regardless, it just proves the point: you have to heavily optimize to make the most out of the class, and it won't be as potent even then. That's poor game designing in my book. It's not unplayable, but it doesn't do much of anything.

... At least, IMO. YMMV, and take my opinion as what it is: merely my opinion. :smallredface:

[sonofzeal]

A class meant for Rangers that delay the spell progression and doesn't progress the animal companion at all? It seems like a very hard to play class to me. Though, thinking again, it might be useful for a Fighter to get a way to fly, though you'd be mostly ignoring the spellcasting part unless you get some fast progression spellcasting class in the mix, and you'd probably be nixing 9th level spells anyways. Regardless, it just proves the point: you have to heavily optimize to make the most out of the class, and it won't be as potent even then. That's poor game designing in my book. It's not unplayable, but it doesn't do much of anything.

... At least, IMO. YMMV, and take my opinion as what it is: merely my opinion. :smallredface:
Ranger animal companion progression is virtually a non-issue. Few Rangers, if any, get much combat mileage out of their animal companion. You don't have it at all in the levels where it helps the most, and when you get it, it's so far behind the Druid curve that it hardly matters except for the utility of an aerial scout or somesuch, which Skylord doesn't interfere with.

Heck, the class doesn't require Ranger at any point. Any martially-oriented Elf with mounted combat focus qualifies. The class features are a little underwhelming, granted, but "underwhelming" isn't "Truenamer broken", which is what you were asked for. :smallwink:

[Grayson01]

It's arguable whether you can choose, and stealing is inherently evil.

Plus, why not be evil? Urpriests can cast Good-aligned spells, after all. Though I suppose you're missing other synergies...

Anyway, Tainted Scholar (and Subverted Psion) are evil and hilariously broken.

Stealing is not inhearently evil, have you ever herd of Robin Hood? The complete Scoundrel labels him as Chaotic Good along with Mal from Firefly. So DnD can't hold stealing as inhearently evil by there very own opinion. I do like the backstory idea of a good or Neutral Ur-Priest who steals from evil gods. Alignment restrictions on PrC's can be and should be circumvented by good DM and play communication. With the proper back story and tweaking there is no reason to not allow a player to make a good version of evil PrC or vice versa.

[Andezzar]

Here we go again. Stealing is an evil act but the reasons for stealing or what you do with the loot can constitute a neutral or good act which can counterbalance the evil act. So instead of 0 evil acts you get 1 good act and 1 evil act and the alignment does not change.

Only people who will face dire consequences if they ever commit a single evil (or good) act are in trouble.

[sonofzeal]

Here we go again. Stealing is an evil act but the reasons for stealing or what you do with the loot can constitute a neutral or good act which can counterbalance the evil act.
No. As I said in the other alignment thread, D&D morality is about the act (deontology), not the reasons (virtue ethics) nor the results (consequentialism). It doesn't matter if you have the best reasons in the world, stealing is still Against The Rules(tm).

...but you're right about the rest. Even a good person can commit an array of minor evil acts, if they're active about going out and doing plenty of good acts too. Robin Hood, specifically, is opposing an unjust authority (good), protecting innocents (good), and giving money and risking his life to help the less fortunate (good). His evil acts, by contrast, are actually a little ambiguous - we say he's "stealing from the rich", but in point of fact he's actually returning extorted money to its rightful owner. He's not holding up every gilded stagecoach that passes through, he's specifically targetting the "tax collectors" and treasuries of Prince John, neither of which have any moral right to the wealth they claim is theirs. Whether that constitutes stealing any more is, at very least, ambiguous. Stealing is taking what belongs to someone else, and that's not actually Robin Hood's primary stock in trade. I'm sure as a general outlaw type he's probably done a few wrong things in the process, taking a couple things that did actually belong to their possessors, but it's enough for him to maintain a Good alignment.

[Andezzar]

Well you say that the tax collectors unlawfully collected that money. I'm not so sure about that. IIRC there were no restrictions on what taxes the sovereign could levy. John reigned in his brother's stead at the time of the Robin Hood legend.
So IMHO Robin Hood was taking money that belonged to someone else. Additionally holding up coaches of tax collectors is not even just theft, that's robbery. Not to mention all the assaults and homicides he committed, during those robberies and on other occasions.

[PersonMan]

Stealing is not inhearently evil, have you ever herd of Robin Hood?

You're the second one in this thread to make that mistake - he was being sarcastic. Hence the blue text color, which is often used to indicate sarcasm as a replacement for tone.

[Tragak]

It's arguable whether you can choose, and stealing is inherently evil. To everybody who has been taking this at face value (Grayson, Omegonthesane...):

Blue text means sarcasm! You're agreeing with him!

[Vasdenjas]

Here we go again. Stealing is an evil act but the reasons for stealing or what you do with the loot can constitute a neutral or good act which can counterbalance the evil act. So instead of 0 evil acts you get 1 good act and 1 evil act and the alignment does not change.

You folks seem to be confusing morally evil acts, with what is considered socially 'evil'.

Stealing in itself is not evil at all. It is merely selfish. It feels evil to the people stolen from, but it is merely against the law, and thus in D&D terms Chaotic. The only way I can see it being truly evil is if your intent is to cause pain and suffering through the loss of the items you took.

For example, if you are stealing all the food from an orphanage, not just so you can have it, but because you specifically want them to starve to death. And cackle with glee when they do.

[Andezzar]

Stealing in itself is not evil at all. It is merely selfish. It feels evil to the people stolen from, but it is merely against the law, and thus in D&D terms Chaotic. The only way I can see it being truly evil is if your intent is to cause pain and suffering through the loss of the items you took.No it is evil by the PHB's definition. Through taking away something that belongs to someone else you are harming that person, unless the item is totally unnecessary. The harm may be small if the item is not essential to survival but the act is still evil.

The fact that stealing is against the law in most communities makes the act chaotic in addition to being evil.

[Larkas]

--snip--

Granted, that was too low a standard to live up to… Still, we have the Apostle of Peace, which wrecks the game experience just as well as the Trienamer, though in very different ways. What does evil has that does the same?

[Coidzor]

Granted, that was too low a standard to live up to… Still, we have the Apostle of Peace, which wrecks the game experience just as well as the Trienamer, though in very different ways. What does evil has that does the same?

I can't think of any. Aside from some weak classes, all of the evil classes I know of are roughly functional and on-board with killing things and taking their stuff like proper murder-hobos.

[Scow2]

Fharlanghn! I hate alignment restrictions. What if your Ur-Priest only stole power from the evil deities and used it to fight their followers?The Ur-priest doesn't choose who he steals his power from - he steals it from ALL the gods. But it's not the Stealing that makes the class evil, it's the (Quite literal) hubris and blasphemy against ALL divinity.

As for theft being evil - it is evil to the point that it is deprivation, and profiting at the expense of another. Do I have to start going postal and quote Terry Pratchett about the morality of theft, embezzlement, and fraud? Robin Hood is still "Chaotic Good" because the taxes levied by the kingdom, while certainly "Lawful" were a much greater form of unjust deprivation. Robin Hood stole what was immorally acquired and returned it to those it was extorted from. Just because a government has the ability to say how much it feels entitled to the livelihoods of its people doesn't mean it's morally justifiable - Do not confuse Lawful and Good.

[sonofzeal]

Granted, that was too low a standard to live up to… Still, we have the Apostle of Peace, which wrecks the game experience just as well as the Trienamer, though in very different ways. What does evil has that does the same?

Tainted Scholar is just completely borked up the borkzoo. Soul Eater, too, if the negative levels are per-attack rather than as a special standard action. Beholder Mage and Illithid Savant practically go without saying. The "Sponsor Worshipper" ability of Fiend of Blasphemy, "Grant Wish" of Fiend of Corruption, and pretty much the entirety of Fiend of Possession are eminently abuseable as well.

And AoP isn't even that bad. Honestly, if you already have Vow of Peace, that's the only really powerful part about it. A VoPe Cleric is generally more powerful than an AoP at most stages of the game.

[Larkas]

Tainted Scholar is just completely borked up the borkzoo. Soul Eater, too, if the negative levels are per-attack rather than as a special standard action. Beholder Mage and Illithid Savant practically go without saying. The "Sponsor Worshipper" ability of Fiend of Blasphemy, "Grant Wish" of Fiend of Corruption, and pretty much the entirety of Fiend of Possession are eminently abuseable as well.

They are broken, but not in the sense of making the character or game unplayable… I think we need a new nomenclature here. Dysfunctional?

[Vasdenjas]

No it is evil by the PHB's definition. Through taking away something that belongs to someone else you are harming that person, unless the item is totally unnecessary. The harm may be small if the item is not essential to survival but the act is still evil.

The fact that stealing is against the law in most communities makes the act chaotic in addition to being evil.

I'd like to know where the PHB states that.

Olidammara, the god of Rogues is CN. Why would that be the case if theft is an evil act?

Even killing isn't an evil act. You must take context and intent into account. Theft, in itself, is not an evil act.

The Ur-Priest, in fact, states he doens't just steal the power, he despises Divnie beings, and steals their power to make them and their followers suffer. That would be the evil part of his theft. His intent for suffering.

[mangosta71]

There are two kinds of broken.
1) the character is an absolute blast for the player and a nightmare for the rest of the party and DM
2) the character is so useless that killing it so that the player can re-roll is an act of mercy

Tainted Scholar, Beholder Mage, Illithid Savant, Fiends, etc. are in category 1. Truenamer, Paladin, Samurai, etc. are in category 2.

[Nettlekid]

They are broken, but not in the sense of making the character or game unplayable… I think we need a new nomenclature here. Dysfunctional?

No, those examples really DO make the game unplayable. Everyone knows that spellcasting is phenomenally powerful, and its only few limiters are action economy, spells per day, and the save DC. Each of those has its own little workarounds, but they're still limiters. Those evil classes remove those limiters. Tainted Scholar can have effectively NI spells per day with NI DC, if it's just THAT tainted. You can't play the game when one member of a party is able to instakill anything and everything all day with no chance of failure. Illithid Savant is similar in that it has the power to gain all powers (by eating the brains of other Illithid Savants). When you played superhero gamed as a kid, wasn't there always that one kid who said his power was all powers? You hated that kid. You couldn't play with him. Beholder Mage outright states that it combines the best of both worlds of a Wizard and Sorcerer, two classes both very powerful on their own, but together greater than the sum of their parts. To be able to know any Wizard spell (over time) and use it whenever you want (if you have the slots) is very powerful. What breaks it is the 10 free action spells per round. There's no way for anyone to guard against that. What's more, a Beholder Mage could easily become a Tainted Scholar, and have all the benefits of both. THAT is broken.

[Larkas]

… Okay, I'm sold. I still don't agree fully with the arguments, since those don't change the way the game proper is played, it just says "I WIN" in big red letters, but still, the game gets pretty much unplayable. But come again, save for the Tainted Scholar, are those other classes "Evil only"?

[Urpriest]

Tainted Scholar is just completely borked up the borkzoo. Soul Eater, too, if the negative levels are per-attack rather than as a special standard action. Beholder Mage and Illithid Savant practically go without saying. The "Sponsor Worshipper" ability of Fiend of Blasphemy, "Grant Wish" of Fiend of Corruption, and pretty much the entirety of Fiend of Possession are eminently abuseable as well.

And AoP isn't even that bad. Honestly, if you already have Vow of Peace, that's the only really powerful part about it. A VoPe Cleric is generally more powerful than an AoP at most stages of the game.

What's so bad about Sponsor Worshiper? It doesn't give spells to someone without cleric levels, or change someone's levels to Cleric. It just means that instead of a Cleric of an ideal someone can be a Cleric of you.

[sonofzeal]

What's so bad about Sponsor Worshiper? It doesn't give spells to someone without cleric levels, or change someone's levels to Cleric. It just means that instead of a Cleric of an ideal someone can be a Cleric of you.
It's... poorly worded. One of those things where no DM should allow the perverse wording, but technically you can Sponsor anyone with six or less HD and a single level of Cleric. And then there's questions of what a "full complement of Cleric Spells" means. You're explicitly GIVING access to a "full complement of Cleric Spells", so it's not something the character already has... so what is it? I'll let you fill in some of the worst-case scenarios there yourself.

Again, "no sane DM". But it's poorly-worded at best.