Boosting a Savage Progression

[Dming For Noobs]

So for an upcoming game, one of my PCs asked to play a genie. So I directed him to Savage Species. Then I looked over it. You get flight at level 1, with perfect maneuverability. You get at will invisibility at level 3. Then basically nothing else of note. The class is really strong at first, then gets nothing new. And you can`t even use the flight and invisibility to go into melee, as you have 1d8 HD every other level.

So I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for how to boost the options, so that instead of flying and scouting invisibly, they have something else to do. The player suggested to maybe give warmage casting off a smaller, more focused list. Would that work? I`m open to all ideas.

[Troacctid]

You're not supposed to add any new abilities to a savage progression. The whole point of a savage progression is that you get exactly the same abilities the monster normally gets, just spread out over a bunch of levels. (Also, you shouldn't underestimate Plane Shift, especially at-will Plane Shift. It's a damn good spell.)

Anyway, consider a major genie bloodline (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/bloodlines.htm#genieDjinni) instead. It'll only cost you 3 levels instead of 13.

[Flickerdart]

You know who else gets flight and invisibility? Warlocks. Just tell him to play one of those.

[Dming For Noobs]

I know that, but I was hoping to see if anyone had any ideas on improving it. In addition to adding usability, as well as make a character that's a standard genie. It seems to me that the savage progression does what it is supposed to do, but falls short of creating a playable character. I was hoping for some help on improving it, or just some unique and interesting ideas.

Aside from that, the bloodline is an interesting idea, and I will run it by my player. However, the main question I have is whether or not it would be to unbalanced to add limited warmage casting to the class, while stripping out some other features. Parts I stripped out so far are acid resistance, planeshift, the slam attack, some of the ability score changes. I also dropped the flight a grade from perfect to good, and dropped the increase in flight speed. Would this be sufficient to balance out the warmage casting, or is it too good?

[Curmudgeon]

If you want to improved the racial class, add a template or two. Because you're gaining class levels rather than monster HD, you can buy off (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/variant/races/reducingLevelAdjustments.htm) the template Level Adjustment at the standard class levels.

[Rubik]

He could always take level 1 as usual, then take levels in legacy champion to continue in the racial class with a suitable homemade, appropriately themed legacy weapon that boosts his racial abilities considerably.

Just take out the prereqs that limit him prior to level 10.

Or you could gestalt it with something else, I guess.

[Dming For Noobs]

That`s what I was thinking, the gestalt idea. I was wondering what would be a good power level or tier would be a good gestalt for it.

Aside from that, I like the legacy weapon idea, and I had not considered the idea of legacy champion. I will run that by the player, and see what he thinks.

Thanks for all the ideas so far.

[Curmudgeon]

He could always take level 1 as usual, then take levels in legacy champion to continue in the racial class with a suitable homemade, appropriately themed legacy weapon that boosts his racial abilities considerably.
The game authors stated explicitly that that's not a reasonable idea.

A monster character may not multiclass until it completes the full progression in its monster class. This rule keeps characters from gaining the benefits of a monster’s type and then quickly switching to a standard class.

[DrMotives]

The reason it's resulting in an unplayable class is that they built all these monsters as NPCs, and the savage progression was a later attempt to work them into PC status. It's not the best. If you want a more reasonable power balance, I suggest adopting Pathfinder rules for monster PCs instead.
Also, the changes you proposed don't really seem very fitting for a djinn. If the player really wants to be a warmage genie, sure, but for generic genie-ness it's out of character. Djinn aren't lightly armored blaster mages, they're unarmored aristocrats, Lords of the Boundless Blue. They have perfect flight because they're the actual royalty of the Plane of Air. They don't wear armor like a warmage because 2 reasons: The Arabic culture they come from isn't known for any form of armor at all; and also they're too vain & full of themselves to admit they have a reason to concern themselves with something as mundane as armor.

You might try Sha'ir for class features, it's in the Dragon Magazine Compendium. It's an update from the 2e version that was part of the Al-Qadim campaign setting. Or maybe you'll find the Pathfinder solution, reducing the LA, is enough to make the Djinn more viable as a PC.

[Rubik]

The game authors stated explicitly that that's not a reasonable idea.The entire point of this thread is houserules. Anything the OP wants will be such. Given that, why did you even bother to respond?

[Curmudgeon]

The entire point of this thread is houserules.
No, it's not just house rules.

So I was wondering if anyone had any ideas for how to boost the options, so that instead of flying and scouting invisibly, they have something else to do. ... I`m open to all ideas.
I already provided an idea (adding templates) on how to boost the character's options, with no house rules required.

Given that, why did you even bother to respond?
Well, obviously some house rules are worse ideas than others. Given that you obviously overlooked the "open to all ideas" part I highlighted above, you may be more confused than I had thought. :smallsigh:

[Ezekiul]

http://www.minmaxboards.com/index.php?topic=270.0

This is a link to a bunch of homebrew monster classes. I've used them in my games and they've turned out pretty well. They have a dark genie that might be worth looking into.

[NomGarret]

Well outsider HD are actually quite good, so you could always give extra RHD on many or all of those levels. This will pad the character without adding too many active things to do that might take away from the genie focus.

[Grod_The_Giant]

How about taking the racial class, granting a HD at each level as normal (with accompanying changes to BAB, saves, and skills), and calling it a melee class? Over 13 levels you'd get, what,

100ft telepathy
Invisibility at-will
Perfect flight
Large size
5 bonus feats
Assorted resistances and stat boosts
Plane shift at will
Create food and water, Create wine, gaseous form, major image, persistent image all 1/day.
Whirlwind at will

And that with full BAB, lots of skill points, and a nice sized HD? Sounds like a nice, solid class to me. You could shuffle the SLAs around a bit to something more useful if you'd like, maybe boost some of the uses/day, change the initial flight to glide, add a couple new class skills, but... yeah. You'll kick the fighter's ass any day.

[noob]

Strap up to it full casting and screaming commoners and it always works.

[NomGarret]

How about taking the racial class, granting a HD at each level as normal (with accompanying changes to BAB, saves, and skills), and calling it a melee class? Over 13 levels you'd get, what,

100ft telepathy
Invisibility at-will
Perfect flight
Large size
5 bonus feats
Assorted resistances and stat boosts
Plane shift at will
Create food and water, Create wine, gaseous form, major image, persistent image all 1/day.
Whirlwind at will

And that with full BAB, lots of skill points, and a nice sized HD? Sounds like a nice, solid class to me. You could shuffle the SLAs around a bit to something more useful if you'd like, maybe boost some of the uses/day, change the initial flight to glide, add a couple new class skills, but... yeah. You'll kick the fighter's ass any day.

The more I think about it, the more this is my preferred method. You can tinker with when the SLAs come online and how they scale, but with full BAB, all good saves, a ton of skill points, and good to great stats across the board, this character will be able to contribute in just about any situation.

[Grod_The_Giant]

The more I think about it, the more this is my preferred method. You can tinker with when the SLAs come online and how they scale, but with full BAB, all good saves, a ton of skill points, and good to great stats across the board, this character will be able to contribute in just about any situation.
Say, something like so:


Level
Special


1
Air mastery, 2 slams 1d6


2
100ft telepathy, Resistance to Acid 5


3
Whirlwind


4
SLAs 1/day (Create Food and Water, Create Wine, Gaseous Form, Invisibility), Resistance to Acid 10


5
Large size


6
Fly 30ft (good), Resistance to Acid 15


7
Invisibility at will


8
SLAs 1/day (Major Creation, Persistent Image, Plane Shift, Wind Walk), Resistance to Acid 20


9
Fly 60ft (perfect)


10
Plane shift at will, Immunity to Acid


And perhaps offer a feat to upgrade any one SLA to more uses-- Cha mod, perhaps, or 3/day. Or expand the 7th and 10th level abilities to be all SLAs from the group at will, or at least 3/day.