The Troll Battlemaster [3.5 PrC][PEACH]

[Harbinger]

The Troll Battlemaster

http://paizo.com/image/content/RiseOfTheRunelords/PZO9003-LeapingTroll.jpg


The trolls are a unique race, blessed with a great ability to recover from injuries that would be fatal for almost any other being of flesh and blood. This regenerative ability is made possible in part by an incredible adaptation known as a redundant nervous system. Whether naturally evolved or given to them by whatever god created them, this almost supernatural ability to heal has given the troll race a unique advantage for thousands of years. With a second nervous system comes other advantages however. Trolls also have a small bundle of nerves located just below their throats. This nerve cluster has been called, by those brave enough to research it and those trolls smart enough to know how to look for it, a "second brain". The addition of this pseudo-brain allows certain unusual trolls of a particularly lawful bent to become powerful warriors of primal calm, rather than of instinctual rage. These trolls embrace unconsciousness, allowing their second brains to take over their thought, permitting them to fully concentrate on battle. These trolls, called battlemasters by their kin, are said to be terrifying in battle, wreaking havoc and destruction on their enemies while never leaving a state of perfect calm and concentration.

Many troll battlemasters start their careers as monks, because the monks inherently disciplined and lawful nature meshes well with the battlemaster. Others follow the classic troll path of fighter, and still others start out as clerics or druids looking for a path of additional wisdom and spiritual calm. Though barbarism is common and even revered in what passes for troll society, no troll battlemaster starts as a barbarian, because the barbarians sheer rage is antithesis to the path of calm taken by the battlemaster

Hit Die: d10

Requirements:

Race
Troll

Alignment
Any lawful

Base Attack Bonus
+5

Skills
Spot 5 ranks, Listen 5 ranks

Feats
Weapon Focus (claw)


Skill Points per Level:
4+Int modifier

All of the following are class skills for Troll Battlemasters:
Autohypnosis (Wis), Concentration (Con), Climb (Str), Jump (Str), Spot (Wis), Listen (Wis), Survival (Wis)



LevelBABFort SaveRef SaveWill SaveSpecial


1st

+0

+2

+0

+2

Instinctual Warrior 1/day, AC bonus


2nd

+1

+3

+0

+3

Metaphysical Claw, Master of the Claw


3rd

+2

+3

+1

+3

Mental clarity, ability increase


4th

+3

+4

+1

+4

Instinctual Warrior 2/day, scarring 5


5th

+3

+4

+1

+4

Axiomatic claw, Master of the Claw


6th

+4

+5

+2

+5

Physical clarity, ability increase


7th

+5

+5

+2

+5

Instinctual Warrior 3/day, scarring 10


8th

+6/+1

+6

+2

+6

Improved regeneration, Adamantine claw, Master of the Claw


9th

+6/+1

+6

+3

+6

Emotional clarity, ability increase


10th

+7/+2

+7

+3

+7

Regenerative Perfection, Body Over Mind, Instinctual Warrior 4/day



Weapon and Armor Proficiency

Troll Battlemasters gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.

Instinctual Warrior (Ex)

At 1st level, a troll battlemaster can enter a state of perfect calm and concentration in battle. His Wisdom score temporarily increases by 4, and he adds his Wisdom modifier to all attack and damage rolls. In addition, he gains a deflection bonus to armor class equal to his troll battlemaster levels. The troll battlemasters temporary Wisdom increase increases by 2 at 4th, 7th, and 10th level, at the same time he gains new uses per day of the ability. This ability lasts for a number of rounds equal to 3+ the characters (newly improved) Wisdom modifier.

AC Bonus (Ex)

If a troll battlemaster has levels in monk, his troll battlemaster levels stack with them for the purposes of speed and armor class bonus, as well as for flurry of blows.

Master of the Claw (Ex)

At 2nd level and again at 5th and 8th level, the troll battlemasters claws become sharper and more powerful, and he learns how to use them more effectively. The damage dice for his claw increases by one size (to 1d8, then to 2d6, then 3d6).

Metaphysical Claw (Su)

At 2nd level, the troll battlemaster takes his first step on the road to becoming in tune with himself and the world around him. His natural weapons are now considered magic for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

Clarity (Ex)

At 3rd level, the troll hones his unconscious mind to take over the functioning of his consciousness, allowing him to use his Wisdom modifier in place of his Intelligence for all Intelligence based skills, as well as for determining skill points per level. At 6th level, the troll battle master hones his mind and his muscles to act as one. He can thereafter use his Wisdom modifier for all Strength and Constitution based skill checks. At 9th level the troll learns to control his demeanor and emotions unconsciously, allowing him to use his Wisdom modifier for all Charisma based skill checks.

Ability Increase (Ex)

At 3rd level and again at 6th and 9th level, the troll battlemaster gains a permanent +2 increase to his Wisdom score, representing his focus and dedication towards honing his mind to perfection.

Scarring (Ex)

At 4th level, the troll battlemasters charred and cracked skin begins to adapt, becoming harder to damage with fire. He gains resistance to fire 5. This resistance improves to 10 at 7th level.

Axiomatic Claw (Su)

At 5th level, the troll battlemasters inner order and collected nature is reflected in his natural weapons. They are now considered lawful for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

Improved Regeneration (Ex)

At 8th level, the trolls near perfect control over his bodys metabolism allows him to send his already formidable regenerative abilities into overdrive. His natural regeneration improves to 10.

Adamantine Claw (Su)

At 8th level, the trolls natural weapons become as hard and as sharp as adamantine. They are now considered adamantine for the purposes of overcoming damage reduction.

Regenerative Perfection (Ex)

At 10th level, the troll battlemaster's ritual scarring finally pays off in full. The troll's skin becomes as resistant to fire as it is to any other kind of damage. The trolls regeneration is now bypassed only by acid.

Body Over Mind (Ex)

At 10th level, the troll battlemaster perfects his mastery of the unconscious mind. He can now act fully without thinking, and can easily ward off harmful mental effects. He gains immunity to all mind affecting spells and abilities, as well as a +4 bonus to Initiative checks.

[SinsI]

Skill points per level?

IMHO, Clarity(Inteligence) for determining bonus skill points comes a little too late.

[Harbinger]

Skill points per level?

IMHO, Clarity(Inteligence) for determining bonus skill points comes a little too late.

Ooops. :smallredface: Forgot about that. And I agree. I'll switch it with Clarity (Strength).

[sajro]

His Wisdom score temporarily increases by 4
This confuses me a bit, is this supposed to be permanently instead of temporarily? And in the case of temp bonus how long?

[silphael]

The effect from mental clarity is retroactive? Because if it is, you'll get a big amount of skill points to spend suddenly, but given the amount of skill point a troll usually have, that probably wouldn't be a bad thing.

[Andion Isurand]

What about helping this troll qualify for feats (from the list of fighter bonus feats) that would normally require a higher Intelligence of Charisma score than it can normally muster?

[enderlord99]

This confuses me a bit, is this supposed to be permanently instead of temporarily? And in the case of temp bonus how long?

A number of rounds equal to 3 + his (newly improved) wisdom modifier.

[Thealtruistorc]

This is a really interesting concept for a PrC, and its executed well (I forsee use with tashalatora builds).

Just a thought, I would replace the skill prerequisites with 5 ranks in autohypnosis (XPH), as that skill coincides well with the TB's techniques.

[Reality Glitch]

This is an interesting take on a monster race, though I'm not sure how game breaking making all non-dexterity rolls wisdom based will be.

[Jeff the Green]

Interesting. I'll give this a more thorough look-over later today (I'm on my phone on my break), but off the too of my head, Metaphysical Claw should also let it hit incorporeal creatures. That's one of the biggest bone-headed mistakes WotC made with monk, and it shouldn't be repeated in homebrew.

[enderlord99]

Interesting. I'll give this a more thorough look-over later today (I'm on my phone on my break), but off the too of my head, Metaphysical Claw should also let it hit incorporeal creatures. That's one of the biggest bone-headed mistakes WotC made with monk, and it shouldn't be repeated in homebrew.

It shouldn't just merely have a chance to hit incorporeal creatures: its claws should gain the Ghost Touch property.

[Qwertystop]

Point-for-point:

The suggested entry classes misses ToB, even though the fluff fits Diamond Mind (and possibly Iron Heart and Stone Dragon) quite well. Warblade could get into this nicely, I think, even though it doesn't progress.

Prerequisites are odd: An unmodified Troll straight from MMI has six skill points in Listen and seven in Spot (its only class skills), but only BAB 4. One level in any full BAB class would get them the BAB requirement (one level in any class if you're using fractional BAB). But then you have the feat requirement - while it's certainly possible for a troll to have nonstandard feats from its RHD, if it does have the standard ones then it can't get the required feat til third level (9 HD total). So two requirements are fulfilled by default, one is fulfilled with one level in anything, and one takes another two levels from there. If, on the other hand, it's not standard-setup for feats and is instead aimed directly towards this class, it qualifies as soon as it gets one level in anything that bumps its BAB up by half a point.

Chassis: Medium BAB on a melee fighting class? Odd. Probably wouldn't break anything to improve it, but I suppose there's not much harm in leaving it either. Fits the Troll RHD, but then the saves, skills, and skill points don't.


Instinctual Warrior: Wisdom to attack and damage while boosting Wisdom. I'd like to note here that a Troll has a racial -2 to Wisdom, so you're using part of your bonus just to offset that. If you can work with that, it's still Rage-but-weaker, since Rage gives bonuses to more than just attack and damage. Also, if you have a Wisdom low enough that this doesn't bring it above ten, this is useless. Considering that Wisdom does not otherwise give you any combat bonuses, it works out oddly - if you invest resources into raising your Wisdom, that only does you any good for a few rounds a day. If you don't, this ability doesn't give you much.

AC bonus: And if you don't have levels in Monk, you get nothing? I might modify this to give you the Monk's AC Bonus class feature even if you don't, so you have more of an incentive to get Wisdom (since, as I said above, the incentive to get Wisdom is low in the current build of the class).

Assorted "Claw" abilties are reasonable - small damage boosts and breaking through the weakest DR (and later, the more significant ones). Nothing gamechanging, but nice little things indeed.

Clarity: Ah, now here's where Wisdom actually becomes useful. Except not really, because this isn't a skillmonkey class. It'll bring you out of complete incompetence in Intelligence and Charisma-based skills, but Strength and Constitution should already be high, both because of your racial bonuses and because you want to be able to fight while not running Instinctual Warrior.

Ability Increase: Oh, here's where you're dealing with that racial penalty - free boost to the tertiary stat so it's not so much of a drain for only-sometimes bonus.

And then you get more resistances and regeneration, so it ends up as a very durable brute class.

Overall, quite nice, though like I said above, the prerequisites are odd and Wisdom is inconsistently useful over the course of the class - there's a lot of emphasis on it, but the only use you get out of it all the time is for skillmonkeying, and that doesn't come til third level so it's a bit too late to start being a skillmonkey when that comes up (you'd be incompetent at it beforehand, and frankly not too much better after). In combat, it's still only useful when you can get Instinctual Warrior going. At the end, that's four encounters a day, and by then your Wisdom should be high enough that it lasts all fight, so it's good for nearly all of when it's relevant. The problem is earlier, when it's only useful for one or two fights a day and quite possibly running out halfway through those.

The biggest thing I'd change would be the AC bonus thing - giving it Wisdom to AC on options other than a Monk entry would make spending resources on Wisdom much less painful when you don't have Instinctual Warrior ready. That would, for example, open up the aforementioned Warblade entry - the only non-skillmonkey way I can see getting Wisdom to Skills working out well, since there's a bunch of maneuvers that run off skill checks. ToB's auto-theurgy system works nicely with making something useful out of the six RHD, too.