Modifying the Chameleon prestige class.

[Qc Storm]

One of my players wants to play a Chameleon. However, we all know that the chameleon has great spellcasting, and little else. The combat, wild and stealth focus are all rather garbage compared to the all-powerful Divine and Arcane Focus.

In exchange for a little spellcasting nerf (Both casting focus are now each limited to a single spell list per day. Today you cast spells as a bard, but tomorrow, a sorcerer, etc.), I will attempt to make the other choices more interesting.

What do you guys think of this :

Combat Focus : In addition to the old stuff, Chameleon is considered full BAB. You also get to choose a fighter bonus feat. At 5th level, you can select an extra fighter bonus feat.

Stealth Focus : In addition to the old stuff, you gain Weapon Finesse and 2d6 sneak attack. At 5th level, sneak attack increases to 4d6.

Wild Focus : In addition to the old stuff, you gain the ability to grow a bite attack that deals 1d6 damage if you are medium. You also gain the ability to Wildshape into a small animal (as the druid Wildshape) for up to your level in hours twice per day. At 5th level, you can Wildshape 4 times.

Other tidbits :

Rage imitation now lasts 3+con rounds.

Smite must be that of an alignment opposed to yours. If you are neutral, you cannot smite. Double your chameleon level for damage.

Turn undead counts as double your chameleon level to determine your cleric level.

Ability boon, at 7th level, allows you to increase 2 ability scores by +2 instead of a single +4. At 10th, you may increase three by +2, or two by +4 instead of a +6 in one score..

Does this sound reasonable?

[Ydaer Ca Noit]

Chameleon only gets 6 levels of spells, so it is expected to cherry pick spells from other spell lists. There is a huge difference between being forced to pick only paladin spells or only clerics, and just taking only what is worth it.

Full BAB doesn't mean much if it applies only to chameleon levels (when compared to spells). But its something, I guess.

I don't get the smite change. Whats the point of it?

Also why nerf the ability boon? If you want the chameleon to use everything (which I suppose is the reason of those changes) he won't be able to have high enough scores in everything, and the +4 barely makes a 10 ability high enough to allow him to cast spells (and if you force him to have a really good casting ability for the days he is playing cleric and an other for wizard, then you can't expect him to go fighter)

[Qc Storm]

Chameleon only gets 6 levels of spells, so it is expected to cherry pick spells from other spell lists. There is a huge difference between being forced to pick only paladin spells or only clerics, and just taking only what is worth it.

Full BAB doesn't mean much if it applies only to chameleon levels (when compared to spells). But its something, I guess.

I don't get the smite change. Whats the point of it?

Also why nerf the ability boon? If you want the chameleon to use everything (which I suppose is the reason of those changes) he won't be able to have high enough scores in everything, and the +4 barely makes a 10 ability high enough to allow him to cast spells (and if you force him to have a really good casting ability for the days he is playing cleric and an other for wizard, then you can't expect him to go fighter)

Sorry, I was not being clear.

Smite normally counts your full chameleon level for damage (as paladin). Now it counts double.

The ability boon thing is not a nerf, but an option. You can split them, or spend the +6 on a single ability score.

EDIT :: After some bargaining with my player, I've agreed to allow a second spell list when you reach 5th level.

Thus, at 5th level, when your focus features gain a boost, you earn the ability to select two spell lists for the day. I think this allows you gain an edge while remaining under control. You can pick Cleric for a vast array of spells, and Paladin for a couple of powerful spells, as well as some cheaper ones. But you can't cherry pick haste from trapsmith, arcane spells from divine bard, or obscure spell from Radiant Servant of a Dragon Magazine God As seen on dandwiki.

[Ydaer Ca Noit]

Oh I see.

Well, the combat focus is worth taking.

You could say that the chameleon has to choose an alignment when choosing his focus for the purpose of abilities like smite and command undead, because I can see it being a problem if he wants to pretend he is a good and can only smite good :P

Also keep in mind that at some point he will out-level a full cleric of the same level for turning purposes. Which may or may not make the party cleric hate him :smalltongue:

Edit:
The thing with chameleon, is that he starts casting spells at character level 6, and never gets 7th lvl spells and above. You can't really compare him to a cleric, because yeah, the cleric can't get lesser restoration as a first level spell - but by the time the chameleon gets his lesser restoration as a first level spell the cleric is casting 3rd level spells.

[Qc Storm]

Oh I see.

Well, the combat focus is worth taking.

You could say that the chameleon has to choose an alignment when choosing his focus for the purpose of abilities like smite and command undead, because I can see it being a problem if he wants to pretend he is a good and can only smite good :P

Also keep in mind that at some point he will out-level a full cleric of the same level for turning purposes. Which may or may not make the party cleric hate him :smalltongue:

At this point, I figured a full cleric either dumped Turn Undead, or optimized it past a chameleon's.

Turning undead equal to your chameleon level won't accomplish much.

[Ydaer Ca Noit]

Ah sorry I was too late with my edit.

A cleric shouldn't have to optimize his turning to keep up with the chameleon :smallbiggrin:
also the cleric even with a very good turning check will only be able to turn his lvl+4 HD of undead. I am not saying that it will cause a problem, but it could.

[Vhaidara]

Combat Focus: Make it give the chameleon full BAB regardless of normal BAB (similar to divine power). Maybe also give them free Weapon Focus/Weapon Spec (small things, but they can help a little) in addition to the feats.

Smite: When you pick your ability, you pick your smiting alignment. Chameleon is all about being what you aren't. What you actually are should have no impact on what you become.

Stealth Focus: Maybe also get Shadow Hand from ToB (Dex to damage with certain weapons)

Wild Focus: Still seems a bit weak, but I can't remember what it normally gives.

The rest sound fine.

[FMArthur]

You could cherrypick particular features from my base class adaptation of Chameleon linked in my sig, taking levels 6-15 as the baseline to back-convert to prestige class length. One of the things I addressed in the conversion was how poor the non-spellcasting focuses were, and I made adjustments to Mimic Class Feature to be more useful as well. Spellcasting focuses are also restricted to a single list (for arcane and divine separately) per Aptitude Focus change, similar to what you proposed.

[Wrathof42]

A chameleon is all about the amazing versatility that they have. By nerfing the spellcasting options to this extent you're only making the other options more attractive in so much as they are slightly less bad in comparison. Given the amazing amount of interaction that's possible when cherry picking spells from lists or seeking out scrolls of strange things such as arcane copies of divine spells or vise versa like an archivist, I don't see how changing this makes the class more interesting. BAB is limited in usefulness, bonus fighter feats almost worthless (here's looking at you Heroics), Wildshape is cute but the small restriction basically means you shouldn't bother or why not just polymorph, ect ect. Making the non-spellcasting options a bit better is understandable (as they are it's really a joke), but I'd say that giving them a bit more umph doesn't solve the problem. Any of these abilities being good enough to justify the jack-of-all-trades, master of none problem would have to be downright amazing (such as the RAW spellcasting) in order to justify the class as opposed to just dipping and a different PRC.

My suggestions would be allowing wildshape to increase in size/types, stealth focus should perhaps have a higher level Hide in Plain Sight tacked on, and the combat focus should net you more than just some BAB and 2 fighter feats.