The Silver Hand (3.5 PrC, PEACH)

[Noctis Vigil]

Bonus points to the first person to be able to tell me where this is derived from.

This is an attempt I'm making to restart Legendary Classes. Some of you may remember them from some older D&D materials. Legendary Classes are hard to enter, and offer very strong powers. However, there is never more than one or a small handful of them in existence at a given time. I intend to make more of these classes later.

The Silver Hand
Some leaders are more than just leaders: they are leaders anointed to their position through prophecy, or direct divine intervention. More, some have suffered great loss to have this right, and their god has stepped in to right this wrong. Such is the Silver Hand.

Class Requirements:
Alignment: Any Good
Deity: Must serve a god
BAB: +10
Base Saves: Fort +10
Feats: Leadership
Special: Must have a Bard as a cohort (ALL his levels MUST be in Bard, or a prestige class that improves his Bardic Music ability)
Special: Must have been present at the death of a great leader and received their Awen (explained below).
Special: Must have lost a hand through no fault of their own in the loyal service of their god.
Special: Must be recognized by a general populace somewhere as a king.

Class Skills: Balance (Dex), Concentration (Con), Climb (Str), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Escape Artist (Dex), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Knowledge (nobility and royalty) (Int), Knowledge (religion) (Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), Swim (Str), Tumble (Dex), Use Rope (Dex).

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

1st|+1|+2|+2|+2|Silver Hand, Naud, Leader of Men

2nd|+2|+3|+3|+3|Barehanded Shield, Invoke Awen

3rd|+3|+3|+3|+3|Flight of Ravens, Ard Reigh, Inspire Men[/table]

Silver Hand: You have been granted a new hand to replace that lost in the service of your god. This hand is always made of mythril, and always bears the insignia of your god on both the back of the hand and the palm of the hand. This marks you as anointed, granting you a +2 untyped bonus to Charisma. The hand may also be used as a holy symbol for turning undead or casting divine spells.

Naud: You have been put in a place of leadership over others, and must judge them fairly. A person under your leadership may make the claim of naud should you judge them for a crime they have committed in your name. A character who does this is in some measure exonerated of the crime, placing the blame upon your shoulders; you must change the judgement originally passed in such a way as to be no more than a safeguard to others under your leadership (such as banishing the guilty party from your realm). Your final judgement may not physically harm the guilty party. (Essentially, you must not kill or torture a follower or cohort for any action they take in your name, be it by your command or not.)

Leader of Men: You are a great leader of men. For every level you take in this class, add +4 to your Leadership Score.

Barehanded Shield: So long as you are not holding anything in your silver hand, you gain a +6 deflection bonus to AC. You lose this bonus while asleep, or whenever you would be denied your Dexterity bonus to AC.

Invoke Awen: You have received the Awen of a leader. An Awen is the dying breath of the leader, breathed into your lungs with the person's final breath.

Once per day per, you may invoke this Awen, gaining a +8 bonus to all stats. In addition, you may use the spell Commune at will as a free action once while this power is active, using no XP or material component, and your silver hand as a focus. You always contacts your god while using this spell. While using this power, you cannot use any Charisma- or Intelligence-based skills (except your Inspire Men ability), the Concentration skill, or any abilities that require patience or concentration, nor can you cast spells (save using the power's Commune ability) or activate magic items that require a command word, a spell trigger (such as a wand), or spell completion (such as a scroll) to function. You can use any feat you have except Combat Expertise, item creation feats, and metamagic feats. You may prematurely end this power. This power stays active for one round per character level.

You may not use this power if you cease to be Good in alignment, but may use it again should you become Good once more.

Flight of Ravens: You gain a set of 6 cohorts under your command: your generals. These cohorts must be of primarily melee classes (Paladin, Fighter and Barbarian are acceptable classes; Cleric, Wizard and Sorcerer are right out). These cohorts are completely loyal to you, so long as you treat all under your leadership justly and fairly (in game terms: so long as you maintain your Good alignment, these men will follow you; should you become Neutral or Evil, they will leave you until such a time as you become Good again). These cohorts are standard level; they are not boosted by the Ard Reigh ability. These cohorts are in addition to your Bardic cohort.

Ard Reigh: You are a leader of leaders; a true king. You gain double the number of followers listed under the Leadership table for your Leadership Score per level (so if the table says you get 75 first level followers, you now get 150). This stacks with the bonus to Leadership granted by Leader of Men, as well as with Epic Leadership and Legendary Commander should you have them.

Additionally, your Bardic cohort is always considered one level below your own level.

Inspire Men: You gain the ability to inspire men. As a full-round action, you may raise your silver hand in the air and attempt to inspire awe or fear in everyone within medium range of you (100 feet plus 10 feet per character level).

If inspiring awe, you make a Diplomacy check (DC equal to the CR of the strongest creature in the group + 1/10th the size of the crowd you're targeting, rounded down). If you succeed, everyone in the crowd becomes one step friendlier towards you, and you gain a +5 bonus on any Charisma-based check you make on anyone effected. You may willingly add +20 to the DC in an attempt to make everyone within range an additional step friendlier and gain an additional +5 on Charisma checks against them; you may add +20 to the DC in this manner as many times as you wish. This ability lasts for one hour per character level.

If inspiring fear, you make an Intimidate check (same DC as for awe). If you succeed, all foes within range become shaken (no save). By adding +20 to the DC, you may instead attempt to frighten your foes. By adding +40 to the DC, you may instead attempt to panic your foes.

Inspiring awe or fear is an extraordinary, mind-affecting ability.

[Silverbit]

I'm not sure where this is from in D&D terms, but at first glance it looks like it borrows from the Irish myth of Nuada Airgetlám. Looks very nice; I'd include it in my campaign world.

[THEChanger]

The inspiration may have also come from the Song of Albion trilogy written by Stephen Lawhead, which in turn draws inspiration from said myth. The specific terms used seem to match up more closely with Lawhead's writing, specifically the Flight of Ravens ability.

With regards to the actual class, while I'm not the best hand at balance, it seems like it would be quite fun to play. Standard concerns with Leadership of course arise, especially with six extra characters on the field instead of one (or possibly seven. It's unclear if the Flight of Ravens is in addition to your original Bard cohort, or includes it. You may wish to clarify.)

[Noctis Vigil]

THEChanger gets the bonus points for this round: Lawhead's trilogy is indeed the inspiration for this. The Song of Albion is basically responsible for me getting into the fantasy genre, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes Celtic mythology. The books are chock full of fantasy, and yet still totally believable (which is quite a feat). Now let's really test your knowledge of the books: can you tell me where in the series I got the inspiration for each ability the class grants? :smallwink:

Clarified the Flight of Ravens ability; it does indeed grant an additional 6 cohorts. Thanks for the catch.

[Noctis Vigil]

This is a shameless bump looking for more PEACHing.

[Garryl]

This looks more like a specific character than an actual class. It's not quite Elothar, Warrior of Bladereach, but I get the same vibe from it (minus the parody).

[genericwit]

So are the 6 cohorts you gain at the normal level of the standard cohort? This seems waaayyyy overpowered, you essentially now have 8 characters instead of one [main character, bard cohort, 6 others]. Considering that with all you need to have a cohort of your level [up to level 17] is a Charisma score of 24, or 2O if you have great renown and are known for fairness, or 18 if you have all of the above and a "special power" [which could be virtually any class other than Fighter or Rogue], or as low as 14 if you also own a guildhouse.

So, at level 17, if you have the above, you could have a level 17 main character, a bard 9/virtuoso 1/Sublime Chord 2/Virtuoso 5 [all of these give bonuses to bardic music], a warblade 17, 2 Crusader 17s [combat healing], 1 barbarian meat shield, a trapmonkey Rogue 17, and a scout or ranger 17... You're basically running a party. Not only would this make combat much, much longer, but you're amazingly powerful. Plus, it's spread out of 3 levels, so you only have to dedicate that amount to garnering 7 equi-level NPCs, and going forward your Bard continues to level one behind you. The only downside is that they'd have NPC wealth, but they still have a ton of benefits.

Leadership itself is kind of overpowered as it is, and you've just made it much more so. However, I can see this as being really helpful if you were running a one man campaign [DM and one player], but at that point you could really have the player running multiple characters, anyway.

Just my two cents, though.

[Noctis Vigil]

Hmm. I can see where you're coming from. Before I do any arguing, I would like to point out I've rarely used Leadership personally as a player, and never allow it at my table unless it's a solo game, so my knowledge of the underlying mechanics and things you can do with it are rather sketchy (read: I never really tried to abuse it much myself). With that out of the way:

1.) Garryl: his is based off the character Llew Llaw Eraint (/Lewis Gillies/Lyd ap Dicter) from the series The Song Of Albion by Stephen Lawhead. While I understand that this may not seem important, each of the class abilities is actually based off of something he does in the book (leads the entire known world as king, strike fear into a crowd with his silver hand, uses the Awen of the bard Olithir to terrible effect vs an ancient evil god, et cetera). This is not an excuse to make a broken class; I want a good class that represents the original character as well as possible.

2.) Yeah, Flight of Ravens is pretty powerful. Not sure what to do about that, really. I implemented it as best I could, but I'm always open for suggestions to fix it. I tried to base power level for them off what we see of them in the books (Llew, the 6 ravens and Cynan rout a warband of about 120 at one point, for instance). Problem is, the book doesn't say much about them other than that they're great and loyal warriors and that they always enter battle naked, and of the two of those I figured only one was required for the class (for hopefully obvious reasons :smalltongue: ). Perhaps make them always Fighters or Barbarians? I think Barbarian is a good fit for them, maybe.

3.) Not really sure what to say about Leadership being broken. Would it help if I decrease the bonus granted to your leadership score each level?

[Garryl]

1.) Garryl: his is based off the character Llew Llaw Eraint (/Lewis Gillies/Lyd ap Dicter) from the series The Song Of Albion by Stephen Lawhead. While I understand that this may not seem important, each of the class abilities is actually based off of something he does in the book (leads the entire known world as king, strike fear into a crowd with his silver hand, uses the Awen of the bard Olithir to terrible effect vs an ancient evil god, et cetera). This is not an excuse to make a broken class; I want a good class that represents the original character as well as possible.


That's my point exactly. Currently, your class is Llew. There is no room for it to be anything but Llew. The concept is too constricted to a very specific character concept. That's bad design. It's very difficult to make characters that take this class and not have them be carbon copies of Llew. (The fact that this is only a 3-level PrC alleviates that somewhat, but almost any character aspects at all related to this PrC will be carbon copies nonetheless.) Ideally, you want to make classes that can support a variety of concepts. Llew should be a Silver Hand, but not all Silver Hands should be Llew, if you catch my drift.

[The Mentalist]

Just to give you an example of what Garryl said, maybe instead of Fighters/Barbarians make it any Tier 4 or below class.

That said...

"This is an attempt I'm making to restart Legendary Classes. Some of you may remember them from some older D&D materials. Legendary Classes are hard to enter, and offer very strong powers."

This class, (other than the fluffy stuff of which 1 is easy, another is forced DM granting, and the other is stabbing a king and giving him a french kiss) is not hard to enter at all, and I really think that you could drop a lot of the fluffy stuff and expand the concept a bit and just make sure that you have to ask your DM to use it (which I think is a general rule for all homebrew actually)

But seriously, difficulty to get into should not equal raw power. This is how we end up with Incantrix or Metaphysical Spell Shaper or Lightning Warrior (though that wasn't difficult to get into) Make a balanced (or even a powerful) class, but don't try and make a powerful class balanced by restricting it. Players will build to it and it's kind of weak design. Incantrix is the perfect example here (or Initate of Mystra). Balance should be a function of the class or the cost of opportunity to take the class, there is no reason for anyone but a Caster NOT to take this class.

[Debihuman]

The silver hand is worded awkwardly. I think you should have created the silver hand as a magic item to give to a PC missing a hand (see below). As a magic item, it is relatively inexpensive. It is rather like a cloak of charisma but with the addition of the holy symbols.

Does the hand allow you to move your fingers normally? Most artificial limbs do not. If it is articulated, you should mention it.

If a PC is missing a hand, I'm not sure what penalties are already in place and which ones having the hand would negate. You say you can hold items in the hand but you aren't clear how this works (see Barehanded Shield).

Here is my estimation of the hand.

Silver Hand
This silver-colored hand made of mithral grants its wearer a +2 enhancement bonus to Charisma. The back of the hand and its palm are scored with the wearer's deity's symbol, allowing it to be used as a holy symbol and as a focus for divine spells.
Moderate transmutation; CL 8th; Craft Wondrous Item, eagle's splendor Creator must be able to cast divine spells. Price 4,000 gp.

Naud should have some kind of game mechanic. Perhaps anyone making a claim of Naud should gain a +2 circumstance bonus to Diplomacy checks.

Invoking Arwen is powerful but it only lasts for one round per Character level. You should probably mention that in the beginning. Presumably this is a supernatural ability that takes a Standard Action to do.

You should have a section on what happens if you cease to be good as well as what happens should your silver hand be taken from you.

Debby

[Rizban]

THEChanger gets the bonus points for this round: Lawhead's trilogy is indeed the inspiration for this. The Song of Albion is basically responsible for me getting into the fantasy genre, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes Celtic mythology. The books are chock full of fantasy, and yet still totally believable (which is quite a feat). Now let's really test your knowledge of the books: can you tell me where in the series I got the inspiration for each ability the class grants? :smallwink:

Clarified the Flight of Ravens ability; it does indeed grant an additional 6 cohorts. Thanks for the catch.

Recognized it as soon as I read the fluff at the beginning. Will you do one based on the Dragon King Trilogy too?

[ntg]

[QUOTE=Noctis Vigil;15155535]THEChanger gets the bonus points for this round: Lawhead's trilogy is indeed the inspiration for this. The Song of Albion is basically responsible for me getting into the fantasy genre, and I highly recommend it to anyone who likes Celtic mythology.

Yes it was Lawhead and this series that started my love of fantasy! Good references to the book (although i read it about 20 years ago and dont remember much).