A few Thrallherd feats for 3.5 (probably Pathfinder compatible)

[redking]

The Thrallherd doesn't get a lot of love in feats, and to be honest an epic progression for Thrallherd doesn't really make sense, especially if that means giving them 10X extra followers like those that have epic leadership can have.

Intensify Psychic Resonance [THRALLHERD]
Prerequisites: Twofold Master (Ex), Diplomacy 20 ranks, Knowledge (psionics) 24 ranks.
Benefit: Double the number of believers that the Thrallherd can have at each level. This has no effect on Thralls.

Psychic Distress Call [THRALLHERD]
Prerequisites: Greater Dominate (Ex), Knowledge (psionics) 14 ranks.
Benefit: The Thrallherd's resonating psychic call carries with it a simple feeling of distress. New believers and Thralls that turn up to serve the Thrallherd realize that the Thrallherd is in trouble and do their best to free or otherwise help, depending on their capabilities. For example, a Thrallherd imprisoned by the authorities might face a riot by believers in an attempt to break the Thrallherd out of prison. Or a legal advocate that is a believer or a thrall may try to use the legal system to get the Thrallherd released. To the best of their abilities the believers and thralls try to secure the freedom or otherwise protect the Thrallherd without endangering the Thrallherd.

Designate Psychic Heir [THRALLHERD]
Prerequisites: Twofold Master (Ex), able to manifest Mind Seed.
Benefit: The Thrallherd may take a full round action designate a thrall or believer to become his heir to lead his cult of believers and thralls upon the Thrallherd's death. When the Thrallherd dies an effect similar to mind seed takes place upon the designated heir, but differs in the following ways. The designated heir gains the memories, alignment, and mental abilities of the Thrallherd, but not his mannerisms or personality of the Thrallherd. The designated heir retains his own memories (in addition to the original Thrallherds) and personality, altered to the extent of alignment change to that of the Thrallherd. The seed germinates over a period of one hour, and the designated heir's experience point total is immediately set to the midpoint of the Thrallherd's previous level. Any of the Thrallherd's remaining thralls or believers continue to serve the designated heir as they served the Thrallherd.

See Subverted Aura [THRALLHERD]
Prerequisites: Psionic Charm (Ex), Knowledge (psionics) 11 ranks.
Benefit: While a thrallherd has controls his thralls and believers completely, such control can be undermined or subverted by psionic mind control effects or magical enchantment effects. The Thrallherd can now detect which, if any, of his believers or thralls within line of sight (to a maximum of 100 ft) are under a mind control or enchantment effect. Furthermore, a Thrallherd may make a psicraft check at 15DC + spell or power level to determine what spell or power the believer or thrall is under.

Negotiator of Doom [THRALLHERD]
Prerequisites: Psionic Dominate (Ex), Diplomacy 13 ranks
Benefit: By ordering a believer to kill itself (for example, by ordering the believer to fall to its death), the Thrallherd may make a single diplomacy, intimidate, or bluff check per person with a +20 (untyped) bonus within 20 rounds of the death against anyone that witnessed the death.

[Zweisteine]

The Thrallherd doesn't get a lot of love in feats
This is true of basically every PrC. But I suppose thrallherds does replicate a feat that gets a fair amount of love...

General opinions:
If you are going to use thrallherds abilities as prerequisites, you might as well use thrallherds levels directly. Alternatively, you could generalize the feats to anyone with automatic psychic mind control. I'll leave notes about this on some of the feats (and will refer to the thrallherd class feature requirements as thrallherd level requirements).
I would add an "Epic Thrallherd" feat, which is the same as epic leadership, but for thrall herds.
Also, I'd remove the "thrallherd" type from these feats and replace them with existing types (psionic and/or epic). Just stick to requiring thrallherd levels to qualify.


Intensify Psychic Resonance [THRALLHERD]
aka Extra Thralls
I like this one, though I don't particularly like the diplomacy requirement; I'm fairly certain most thrallherds only train that skill to meet the requirement for the class. Consider that of the leadership feats, only one (Legendary Commander) requires any diplomacy to take.


Psychic Distress Call [THRALLHERD]
In my opinion, this feat is a bit underwhelming. I might make it into a more general emotion-projection feat, allowing the thrallherd to project vague emotions to all of their followers, much like communication between a familiar and its master, but only one-way. This, on the other hand, risks being very powerful if used carefully (like giving contingent orders to take actions based on received emotions).

As a related concept, I would support a feat that essentially gives the thralls (but not believers) a permanent locate creature effect targeting their thrallherd.
Directed Bond [Psionic]
Your thrall always can find you.

Prerequisites
Thrallherd level 5, Manifester level 11th

Benefits
Your thrall gains three abilities allowing it to use your psychic bond to sense your location.

The thrall can create an effect similar to locate creature at will as a standard action. This effect is identical to the spell, except that it can only locate you, is not blocked by running water (it is still blocked by lead), and your thrall does not need to turn to sense the direction towards you. This is a psi-like ability.
Your thrall can constantly sense the general direction to you. This effect allows the thrall to sense the approximate cardinal or ordinal direction to you (N, E, S, W, NE, NW, SE, SW).
When you or your thrall leave or enter the plane the other is on, the thrall is made aware of the change. This is a supernatural ability.

The thrall loses these abilities when you die.

Notes:
The range of the locate ability might need to be adjusted to medium.
The second ability needs a better wording.
I have no idea if this is at all balanced.


Designate Psychic Heir [THRALLHERD]
I see a few problems with this feat. Most importantly, the key distinction between the thrallherd and their herd is willpower. The thrallherd uses their immense will to subjugate those with weaker minds. So the thralls shouldn't be strong-willed enough to maintain the herd (thrall-chaining shenanigans aside). Also, this feat looks like it essentially makes the ex-thrall a PC. While that itself is fine, and even a good idea, giving them the thrallherd's herd doesn't really make much sense. It could make sense as a proper mind seed, but this strange midpoint does not.

First, I would introduce another feat that allows the thralls alone to be maintained after death, and make it a requirement for this feat. (I made such a feat and put it in the spoiler below.)

Second, I would stipulate that the thrall does not retain control of the herd, but rather just unconsciously maintains your bond, so they return to you if you are raised. I've put details for how I'd make this work with my feat inside the spoiler.

Residual Bond [Psionic]
Your death does not immediately sever your bond with your thrall.

Prerequisites
Thrallherd level 5, Manifester level 13th, Directed Bond (see above)

Benefits
If you die, your thrall does not abandon you. For a number of days equal to your charisma modifier, your thrall will do anything within their power to bring you back to life. If you return to life within that time, the thrall returns to your service as your thrall.
After that time passes, the thrall returns to its normal life. However, if you return to life within a number of additional days equal to the highest manifester level at which you could manifest psionic dominate, the former thrall returns to your service as your thrall.

If you are a 10th-level thrallherd and have two thralls, this applies to the higher-level thrall. The lower-level thrall is affected the same way, but the two time limits are reduced by half (tries to bring you back to life for 1/2 charisma modifier days, will return to your service for an additional 1/2 manifester level days).

Special
You may take this feat twice. The second time requires thrallherd level 10, and it makes your second thrall follow the same rules as the first.

Notes:
I put Directed Bond as a requirement, but any feat that indicates a stronger-than-normal bond would work fine.
The italicized part probably doesn't belong there, after I added the option to take the feat twice.

A (extra-complicated) general idea of how my feat to maintain your believers after your death would work:


First, your second thrall, if you have one, will return to your service for the same amount of time as the first.
When you die, your believers' bonds pass to your thrall(s). The most immediate effect this has is potential loss of followers, as your thrall likely has a lower leadership score than you (use the thrall's level and charisma, and your thrallherd level, to calculate this special leadership score). If you have multiple thralls, use the thrall with the higher effective leadership score (level + charisma modifier).
If you have Residual Bond twice, the excess followers are passed to your other thrall, up to the limit of their own special leadership score (thrall's level + thrall's charisma, but not your thrallherd level). This thrall will be referred to as your second thrall starting here (and the other as the first thrall).
Your remaining believers return do not take immediate action to restore you, but will render any aid they can to your thrall(s), but with the same limitations as most dominate effects – they won't risk their lives to return you to life, but they will gladly pool their resources to buy a pile of diamond dust, or spread out across a country to find a high-level cleric.
After the initial period is passed (when the thrall stops looking for you), the believers begin to disperse. Subtract your thrallherd level from the thrall's special leadership score (leaving it equal to their level plus their charisma modifier), and lose all believers maintained by the second thrall, if any. The remaining believers keep their bond to the first thrall, but no longer have a conscious awareness of it and return to their normal lives.
At the point when your thrall would no longer return to you or when your thrall dies, the bond fully dissipates, and none of your previous believers automatically return if you return to life.
Any believers still maintained by your thrall(s) when you return to life return to your service with their thrall.

I have no idea what kind of balance this had; I made it too complicated.


See Subverted Aura [THRALLHERD]
This looks pretty good to me.
Minor changes:

The identifiable effects should be slightly more specific: magic or psionic charm or compulsion effects only.
Depending on magic/psionic transparency, I might limit it to psionic effects, or only allow it to identify specific psionic effects.
Also, it should probably specify use of psicraft to identify psionic effects and spellcraft for magical effects. Note that the normal DC to identify in-place effects is 20+effect level, and that use takes no action. With that in mind, I would require the feat's effect-identification to take a standard action, but I would also allow it to be attempted in addition to the normal use of the skill (which normally can not be retried).


Negotiator of Doom [THRALLHERD]
I would only make this apply to intimidate, or diplomacy via intimidation, and require intimidation training, rather than diplomacy. Actually, I wouldn't make this a feat: this is the sort of thing that should be treated as a circumstance bonus.
Though I could see this being a vile feat, perhaps, and granting a +10 profane bonus. (Though I might remove the example of ordering a believer to fall, and instead specify that it must be direct – it has to be clear that the believer is actual willing to kill themself for you).

[Calthropstu]

I see a few problems with this feat. Most importantly, the key distinction between the thrallherd and their herd is willpower. The thrallherd uses their immense will to subjugate those with weaker minds. So the thralls shouldn't be strong-willed enough to maintain the herd (thrall-chaining shenanigans aside). Also, this feat looks like it essentially makes the ex-thrall a PC. While that itself is fine, and even a good idea, giving them the thrallherd's herd doesn't really make much sense. It could make sense as a proper mind seed, but this strange midpoint does not.

First, I would introduce another feat that allows the thralls alone to be maintained after death, and make it a requirement for this feat. (I made such a feat and put it in the spoiler below.)


Another HUGE problem... you're giving an npc all of your abilities ON TOP OF HIS OWN.

...

I doubt any gm would allow that.

[redking]

Thanks for the replies.

The Designate Psychic Heir feat. You got half of the reasoning - yes, it is a kind of feat to allow PCs, or NPC enemies, to return. Given that there is resurrection, its not an unbalanced ability. Also, I wanted to have some thrallherd cults to be able to continue after the death of the thrallherd. As to the question of the abilities of the heir, they lose all their original class levels, and is replaced by the thrallherd's (albeit one level lower). The heir retains its own memories and personality, but also has the memories of the thrallherd (for example, he remembers where the thrallherd hid his secret stash). The psychic need to be dominated by others is eliminated by the dominance of the original thrallherd's legacy.

I thought direct level requirements for feats were a no-no, but what Zweisteine says makes sense. I will switch requirements.

I really like Directed Bond! I still want to keep Psychic Distress Call, and the Directed Bond makes sense as a prerequisite for Psychic Distress Call. Lets fix Psychic Distress Call!

As for epic thrallherd - unfortunately 3.5 thrallherds don't get the thrallherd equivalent of epic leadership, while the dreamscarred press version for pathfinder does it right (and is OK to port over to 3.5). The capstone at level 10 also includes -

http://www.occidentalism.org/wp-content/trythis/expanded-call.png

It would be better to just have that rather than the same number of people at epic leadership levels (way too extreme).

See Subverted Aura - I agree with everything that you wrote.

Negotiator of Doom VILE feat sounds interesting. I suppose in that case it could even be independent of thrallherd (but awesome for thrallherds). You are right... it SHOULD be a circumstance bonus, but everything seems to be a feat. Perhaps we can roll something else into this feat to make it worthwhile? By the way... when making this particular feat, I was thinking of this.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2EQ0FlVks4