Nettlekid
2013-07-02, 08:38 PM
In the 3rd party book Hyperconscious, which is a good supplement to Psionics in general (and written by Bruce Cordell, author of the Expanded Psionic Handbook, so it's pretty legit for 3rd party) there's a cool Prestige Class called the Voce Warrior. I'm not sure how Voce is meant to be pronounced, like "vohs" or "voh-say" or "voh-che" or whatever, because it would make sense to be called the Voice Warrior, because your weapon of choice is your Echoic Saber, a sound projection sword you make by screaming. Pretty low prereqs, easily enterable at level 5 by a Psychic Warrior or level 4 by any full BAB class willing to shill out the skill points and a feat on Hidden Talent.
Anyway, while you get some pretty cool features like being able to upgrade your Echoic Saber to varying levels throughout the day, and the wickedly powerful Sketono Voice which allows a 1/day auto-hit, auto-crit, Fort save 10+damage dealt or die, I think the most optimizable aspect of this PrC is that at first level, all your weapon-specific feats morph so that they apply to your Echoic Saber. Now, it intends for these feats to be along the lines of Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, etc, feats where you pick a weapon to apply the feat to. But the wording is very much like that of the Aptitude Weapon in Tome of Battle, and it very basically states that all weapon-specific feats now apply to the Echoic Saber instead of their original weapon. This sounds really breakable to me (well, as breakable as anything melee gets). See, what it makes me wonder is, could you apply feats like Lightning Mace, Three Mountains, High Sword Low Axe, Crescent Moon, Hammer's Edge, Anvil of Thunder, and the like, all keyed to your Echoic Saber? Have the foe make a plethora of saves with every two hits from your scream sword, some of which they're bound to fail? Could there be a build that's worth all this (probably investing heavily in PsyWar, Fighter and Feat Rogue for the feats required) and that basically messes up its foes in all kinds of ways by shouting at them hard?
Anyway, while you get some pretty cool features like being able to upgrade your Echoic Saber to varying levels throughout the day, and the wickedly powerful Sketono Voice which allows a 1/day auto-hit, auto-crit, Fort save 10+damage dealt or die, I think the most optimizable aspect of this PrC is that at first level, all your weapon-specific feats morph so that they apply to your Echoic Saber. Now, it intends for these feats to be along the lines of Weapon Focus, Improved Critical, etc, feats where you pick a weapon to apply the feat to. But the wording is very much like that of the Aptitude Weapon in Tome of Battle, and it very basically states that all weapon-specific feats now apply to the Echoic Saber instead of their original weapon. This sounds really breakable to me (well, as breakable as anything melee gets). See, what it makes me wonder is, could you apply feats like Lightning Mace, Three Mountains, High Sword Low Axe, Crescent Moon, Hammer's Edge, Anvil of Thunder, and the like, all keyed to your Echoic Saber? Have the foe make a plethora of saves with every two hits from your scream sword, some of which they're bound to fail? Could there be a build that's worth all this (probably investing heavily in PsyWar, Fighter and Feat Rogue for the feats required) and that basically messes up its foes in all kinds of ways by shouting at them hard?