Prestige Races and VoP

[Ruethgar]

Well would you look at that, Dragon Magazine #304 has options to give you all of your gear back at the cost of XP. VoP FTW! Still would be easier to just not pick VoP and not have to deal with the "create your own" section of Prestige Races, but what does the playground think of this as a supplement for some of VoP's short comings? Would you allow some custom prestige race paths for flight, DR bypassing etc. for a diehard VoP fan?

For those without the article, the custom creation rules are basically make a magic item with no space limitation, take 20% of the price and pay it as XP. You meditate for a bit, sacrifice XP and tada Thought Bottle it back for free items without the risk of theft/destruction.

[Extra Anchovies]

What do you mean, get your gear back? Unless you mean the "creating your own prestige race alterations". In which case this seems really cool, except it requires that your VoP character use a Thought Bottle. Which they can't.

Unless the first "item" they add to themselves is a thought bottle...

[Ruethgar]

The thought bottle bit was a tad off topic as to how abusable custom prestige races could be, though with it as the first item you would only be losing the cost of the bottle and then freely enchant yourself from there. But even without a though bottle, if you mitigate them properly(adding skill/class reqs, using Sanctum versions of spells etc.) the XP cost would not hurt much.

[Extra Anchovies]

The thought bottle bit was a tad off topic as to how abusable custom prestige races could be, though with it as the first item you would only be losing the cost of the bottle and then freely enchant yourself from there. But even without a though bottle, if you mitigate them properly(adding skill/class reqs, using Sanctum versions of spells etc.) the XP cost would not hurt much.

Well, with Vow of Poverty you couldn't use the Thought Bottle without breaking the vow. Of course, you wouldn't need to be VoP to abuse the hell out of this; making the first Prestige Race ability act as a Thought Bottle (and pay its full XP cost normally), then adding everything else you can imagine whenever you have in-game downtime, just lets VoP characters use it.

[Ruethgar]

I wonder if there is a custom list of pre-made reasonable prestige race advancements. Anyone know of a list on these or other forms? Anyone have some to suggest?

[Segev]

While I won't ask for a complete write-up, can we get a cliff-notes version of what a "prestige race" is, as I've never heard of them before?

[Necroticplague]

While I won't ask for a complete write-up, can we get a cliff-notes version of what a "prestige race" is, as I've never heard of them before?

Step1:Pick up feat called Sculpt Self at level 11+
2: Decide what permanent item you want to gain the effects of.
3:blow a bunch of XP related to the cost of the item
4:meditate 8 hours a day, for an amount of days equal to xp cost/1000.
5:now permanently have benefits of the item.

They have some examples in the dragon magazine they came from, but most of them suck pretty badly.

[Thrice Dead Cat]

Step1:Pick up feat called Sculpt Self at level 11+
2: Decide what permanent item you want to gain the effects of.
3:blow a bunch of XP related to the cost of the item
4:meditate 8 hours a day, for an amount of days equal to xp cost/1000.
5:now permanently have benefits of the item.

They have some examples in the dragon magazine they came from, but most of them suck pretty badly.

They're also in chains about three or four things long that get more expensive the higher up said chain you go. The listed options are effectively Earth, Wind, Water, Fire, Heart Soul, Transhumanism. These options then sometimes conflict, so if you go the Earth route you can no longer gain the Wind or Water powers. Most of the effects are really minor (gain some natural armor, use a few SLAs once or more per day, some elemental resistances, or +1 inherent bonus to one or another stat).