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View Full Version : Contest Pretige Class Contest Voting Thread, The Little Things.



Westhart
2017-11-21, 09:44 AM
Well, here's the voting thread for the first prestige class contest, It's the Little Things. Voting will consist of each voter giving a first, a second, and a third place vote, as well as a vote for the categories of Most Original, Most Likely to See Play, and Best Use of Theme. Anyone can vote, and in fact, entrants must vote to qualify for victory.

A first place vote is worth three points, a second place vote is worth two points, and a third place vote is worth one point. Votes for the three other categories are each worth 1 point in their category. You may not vote for your own entry.

You are encouraged to include reason with your votes, though this is not absolutely required.

The entry that ends up with the most points wins the contest, and each category goes to the entry with the most votes in it.. Voting starts now and will continue until 11:59pm (Eastern Standard Time USA/Canada; GMT-5) on November the 30th.



Creator
Entry
1st
2nd
3rd
Total Points
Most Original
Most Likely to See Play
Best Use of Theme


Aniikinis
The Wasp (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22486211&postcount=2)
4
1

14

4
2


Baby Gary
The Sneaky Hand (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22487367&postcount=3)









NothingAbnormal
The Hedge Mage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22488685&postcount=4)
1
1
1
6

2



Coretron03
Minimizer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22490594&postcount=5)
1
2



1
1


Kaskus
Dust Devil (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22494235&postcount=6)

1
3



2


MrNobody
Master of Needles (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22494422&postcount=7)
1
1

5
2




Jormengand
The Leveller (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22496566&postcount=8) (and spells (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22540504&postcount=13))
1
1
1
6


2


Morphic tide
The Hive Master (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22497039&postcount=9)
1
1
4
9


1


Sengmeng
Singer of the Forbidden Song (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22497127&postcount=10)

1

2
1




gawwy
Mini-o-Mancer (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22501691&postcount=11)

2
1
5





daremetoidareyo
Dermagraphter (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22527031&postcount=12)


2
2
3




Lanth Sor
The Intern (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22542272&postcount=14)




6

1


Joshua Z
Atomos Mage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22550878&postcount=15)
1

1
4

2
2


neriractor
Mycologist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22564912&postcount=16)









Ranged Ranger
Sparrow Riders (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22578093&postcount=17)
2
2
1
11

3
2



1st Place: The Wasp (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22486211&postcount=2) by Aniikinis.
2nd Place: Sparrow Riders (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22578093&postcount=17) by Ranged Ranger
3rd Place: The Hive Master (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22497039&postcount=9) by Morphic tide

Most Original: The Intern (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22542272&postcount=14) by Lanth Sor
Most Likely to See Play: The Wasp (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22486211&postcount=2) by Aniikinis.
Best Use of Theme: Well, seems we have a massive tie here, with:

The Wasp (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22486211&postcount=2) by Aniikinis.
The Leveller (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22496566&postcount=8) (and spells (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22540504&postcount=13)) by Jormengand
The Atomos Mage (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22550878&postcount=15) by Joshua Z
Sparrow Riders (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showsinglepost.php?p=22578093&postcount=17) by Ranged Ranger



Congratulations to the winners of The Little Things prestige class contest!

Apologies for the number miscountings! I hate tables!

Aniikinis
2017-11-21, 10:03 AM
I'd just like to point out, before my votes, that I'm petty sure that The Wasp didn't create me, nor did The Leveller create Jormengandr.

[ninja'd] nevermind. :smalltongue: [/ninja'd]

Votes:

1st Vote: The Hive Master. Not gonna lie, I just love the idea behind this and I will definitely make a character with this class in the build in the future.

2nd Vote: Sparrow Riders. I'd love to use this in a build, especially with followers and an army all riding on wasps.

3rd Vote: Mini-o-mancer. I just love the idea and could see this being played at my table.

Most Original: The Intern. No comment, I just think it's awesome and pretty dang original.

Most Likely to See Play: Hedge Mage. It's very flavorful and extremely balanced.

Best Use of Theme: The Leveller. Reducing large things to the smallest thing ever: Dust.

Westhart
2017-11-21, 10:05 AM
Yep, realized the table was screwed up and I had forgotten the links, so quickly switched 'em around :smallwink:

daremetoidareyo
2017-11-21, 01:39 PM
Votes:

1st Vote: Minimizer: Tightly produced 5 level prestige class that affects flavor but doesn't get too overpowered. More fun than many other officially produced mage prestige classes and can be dragged and dropped into any setting.

2nd Vote: Mini-o-mancer: Rebuking tiny things is fun. And this isn't too powerful while allowing a player to have a ton of fun. Not first because this class is derailment central. DMs be like, "screw it, what plot do YOU want?"

3rd Vote: Hive Master: Powerful and balanced. I like every class ability. I felt that it was outclassed by the Minis in first and second place, but it's a testament to the quality of the competition not the hive master entry. I did struggle with understanding swarm HD from the table/text, but BZZZ, swarms are fun!

Most Original: The Intern. It's cute as hell. Almost made me lol.

Most Likely to See Play: Sparrow riders. DMs love shizz like thizz.

Best Use of Theme: The wasp. Maybe it's primacy effect, but the wasp is all about being a little thing and doing it well. Although I liked the mechanics and approach of some other themed entries, this one does it as a martial in a way that looks exactly like what was asked for.

Morphic tide
2017-11-21, 02:58 PM
1st: Sparrow Rider by Ranged Ranger, as it's a properly useful class for mounted combatants, particularly for stuff like Worg cohorts and all those other apparently-intended-to-be-mount creatures that default to Medium and would be far better served by packing their progression full of Totemist or something, instead of giving them the 2-4 extra RHD needed to be Large. In general, the movement speeds make it an attractive choice for mount builds that don't have a particularly important progression to manage, like those using Cohort-mounts. Basically, any mount build that isn't going supermount, and some of those, too.

2nd: Leveller by Jormengand, as it's a nice twisting of the theme that I largely dislike due to not being clear in its twisting. If it had some form of free metamagic that obeys the normal limits, but saves on the spell slot adjustment, or had bonuses for casting spells at targets larger/more numerous than you, I'd not have issues with it being in the contest. The rest of my dislike, and to be honest the majority of it, comes from being literally just a spell list without any proper class features. Like all the other Elite Spellcasters so far.

3rd: Dust Devil by Kaskus. Nice concept, uses some niche mechanics and introduces a new mechanic that can be reused for other things quite well. Although Kaskus forgot to specify how Motes recharge...

Most Original: Master of Needles by MrNobody, because it does something seemingly utterly absent in the main game: A prestige class specializing in a specific ranged weapon that actually works with Monk. My Hive Master PRC is just a variant on Vermin Lord, while Atmos Mage is a uniquely-fluffed metamagic/spellfire PRC. Leveller is just a hopped-up Evocation specialist without any actual Evocation improving features. Just fancy spells.

Most Likely to See Play: Wasp by Aniikinis, because it provides vital direct combat power to Rogues, who have niche protection forcing someone to grab it for dealing with traps, while Arcane Trickster builds able to eat the two lost caster levels(possibly preferring extra Sneak Attack and movement speed to 9th level spells) can make good use of the extra 10' movement speed and the extra Sneak Attack.

Best Use of Concept: I'll have to go with Intern by Lanth Sor, for twisting the concept in an identifiable way and being a decent job at its interpretation. Sure, it breaks the game with certain PRCs like Ur-Priest and my own Hive Master, but it's a decent way of doing early-entry into PRCs that manages to keep it from being a problem. Particularly given the need for a character with 15 levels in a class to get the crazy stacking.

Ranged Ranger
2017-11-21, 08:55 PM
1st Vote: The Wasp.
Love this! Would definately play!

2nd Vote: SINGER OF THE FORBIDDEN SONG
I love that those who start as bard and go into this can convert their Bard levels turning it into a base class; although I don't agree that knowing/using a forbidden song precludes using other music... Everything is Awesome. This is the song that never ends...

3rd Vote: Atomos Mage

Most Original: The Intern

Most Likely to See Play: The Hedge Mage

Best Use of Theme: Minimizer

JoshuaZ
2017-11-22, 12:48 PM
My votes:

1st Vote: The Wasp. All around well-balanced and well-written.

2nd Vote: Master of Needles. I really like the mechanics and material, and it looks like it would be very fun to play. It also has a lot of advantages: a lot of PrCs that use a specific weapon one has to wonder why they can only use that specific weapon, but in this case the weapon chosen is so unique itself that it becomes immediately apparent.

3rd Vote: Hive Master for doing a well-balanced thing that really fits the theme and should sort of exist already. This was a difficult choice. The Leveller could go here, but the lack of class features and focus just on Elite spellcasting is a real standout issue. The Hedge Mage does a really nice way of being a relatively low-level spell focused spellcaster, and has interesting mechanics (my main quibble and this may be just that I'm used to playing in lower level settings is that 4th and 3rd level spells don't really feel low level to me). I'd really like to go with the Dermagraphter partially because I really like the creepy and uncomfortable vibe it has (if a class makes me involuntarily shudder a bit I'm happy) but the lack of mechanical details is an issue; I hope we'll see later a fleshed out version for what exactly happens when one transplants class features this way.

Most Original: Singer of the Forbidden Song for doing something I don't think would have ever occurred to me as a take on a musical PrC. This was another tough one since contest showed a lot of originality, some of which I touched on above. The Master of Needles is a very clever take on an obscure weapon. The Dermagraphter is just amazingly clever. The Hedge Mage is a really neat attempt on how it works. The Mycologist is also really original, but I don't quite feel comfortable voting for a class that isn't finished (but really hope we'll get to see a finished version!). The Mini-O-Mancer also gets a shoutout for being original and hilarious.

Most Likely to See Play: The Wasp Oh wow, this was also pretty tough. Most of the entries were well-balanced, flavorful and fun to play. I'd be pretty much willing to let a player play almost any of these, and for my primary homebrew campaign setting am already thinking of how some of these would fit in. The Hive Master fits in pretty well with a specific order of druids there, and I have a bunch of ideas for villains using the Singer of the Forbidden Song, and I think I'm going to make the Sparrow Riders the elite guards of one of the fey queens. And the next time I play in someone else's campaign, I may want to play a Hedge Mage depending on the campaign level. The Sneaky Hand also does a decent job at being a rogue PrC that I might actually want to play (which for whatever reason there seem to be very few of).

Best Use of Theme: Dust Devil There are a lot of good uses of the theme, ranging from the highly literal (Minimizer, Mini-O-Mancer, The Wasp, Sparrow Rider) to more figurative ones like the Singer of the Fordbidden Song and the Leveller, but the Dust Devil seems to be one of the more interesting approaches to the theme.

MrNobody
2017-11-23, 04:22 PM
1st Vote: The Wasp.

2nd Vote: Dust devil

3rd Vote: Hedge Mage

Most Original: The Intern

Most Likely to See Play: the Wasp

Best Use of Theme: Atomos mage.

Baby Gary
2017-11-27, 11:39 PM
1st place: Mini-o-mancer

2nd place: Hedge Mage

3rd place: The Leveller

Most Original: The Intern

Most likely to see play: Sparrow Riders

Best use of theme: Hive Master

Westhart
2017-11-28, 08:49 AM
1st Vote: Master of Needles

2nd Vote: Hive Master

3rd Vote: Dermagraphter [shudder]

Most Original: The Intern

Most Likely to See Play: Sparrow Riders

Best Use of Theme: The Wasp

neriractor
2017-11-29, 10:09 PM
1st Vote: The Hedge Mage- dang, Iīm in love with this class :smalltongue: is just such and interesting idea :smallsmile: and while a bit restrictive in the prerequisites it does repay nicely which a nice chassis for a mage. Spell chain looks hilarious to do and all other abilities seem balanced and in keeping with the hedge mage theme, Iīll love to play one and probably will be spamming to request it in every homebrew campaing at an appropiate level I find for a while.

2nd Vote: The Wasp- when I first saw the class I had two toughts: "damn, someone did it before me" and "this is a bit... boring isnīt it" but after the modifications made from there the class has really come together, with some great abilities that make it a straight improvement over a class that would like one, and a nice set of sinergies between its abilities that any of the "giant killing" prestige classes in 3.5 would love to have, it fills a niche in the game that is nice to have full and provides some interesting new choices for a rogue in- and outside of combat, only complain I have is with the HD reduction with I didnīt think it needed but it does seem to be the only loss from straight rogue so I guess it was either that or cutting the class features for you (you made the right choice).

3rd Vote: The Hive Master- I always wanted to play this type of character, and was heavily dissapointed on the versions of this concept made in official sources. I really like this class, every ability you gain being meaningful and able to escalate with the character while encouraging thought on swarm positioning and how many of them you really need to control, the class has clearly had a lot of thought put into it and it is great, plus it has some wilder love which is something I approve of. That said, I really think the class would benefit from some improvements, such as being a bit more specific how you actually give order to the swarms? specifically for vermins and other mindless swarms as well as an actual action expenditure for taking control of swarms, even if it is a free action.

Most Original: Dermagraphter- what? I donīt even... what?- neriractorīs thoughts upon seeing the Dermagraphter.

I actually didnīt expect anyone to make a class based on a cantrip, and I definitely didnīt see a class based on that cantrip coming, and besides that the abilities manage to be interesting and not as niche as expected, albeit still very much so (which keeps it from most other categories), kudos on the surprise factor, and if I ever DM Iīll likely have at least one of these around just to see the playerīs eventual reaction.


Most Likely to See Play: Wasp- the class is really neat (see above why) and is really well balanced for your average game, giving you some encounters you shine on, and an appealing stick that hardly any DM would reject, seeing as it also has no actual replacements in the game, as far as I know.

Best Use of Theme: The Leveller- I liked the way you were going for this from the beggining and it didnīt let me down, the elite list seems to fit the way you were going for the theme perfectly (why would it be there if it didnīt) and I really like some of the spells, mostly the ones made from scratch, the knowledge skill requirement was also a nice touch.


Hnorable mentions: literally everyone else on the competition (except for me, since I bit more than I could chew and ended up not finishing it :smallredface:), wonderful work eveyone, I know I said I was going to spam only the hedgemage for a while but damn, do I wish there was enough time (and games) to play all of this classes soon.

Jormengand
2017-11-30, 04:12 AM
1st: The Atomos Mage. This is cool and apart from spelling I can't see anything wrong with it. You might want to check the numbers on getting atomos points a bit more because you might be able to steal too many with salvage arcana (doubling your atomos pool might be too much?) but I haven't run the numbers properly so I dunno I like to pray and hope that this one is Most Likely to See Play.

2nd: The Sparrow Rider. Unless I'm missing something, this doesn't usually actually allow you to ride sparrows. No clue why it's nine levels long. I do like the idea of riding tiny tiny creatures, so take a Best Use of Theme on the house.

3rd: The Dust Devil. This class relies on you both spending motes and not spending motes. Essentially, if you use motes to power up your abilities, you lose some of those abilities. It would work perfectly fine so long as you hadn't got the clause forcing you to have a certain number of motes, though, and the powers it gives you are fine, and it's easy to get into. Dust blast isn't usually the best use of your standard action but... oh well? At least it heals you next level.

Expanded mote pool is kinda useful because it actually allows you to use your augments without being sad, but I'd argue that that should be something you can do without a feat.

(4th: The Master of Needles.) I want to like this class, because it's a way of making an uncommon weapon more useful, but it doesn't really make it more interesting. Still, it's functional enough. I guess that it's probably also Most Original.

(5th: The Singer of the Forbidden Song.) Assassin meh. Probably still better than most of the others. Somewhat amusing. Forbidden song itself is badly worded and dear god does your computer not possess a return key? Jeez!

(6th: The Mini-o-Mancer.) Weird, requires you to go around rebuking things in order to get any class features, and the d4 hit die, bad bab and no other class feature progression doesn't help. No spellcaster, psionicist or hyper will give up spells, powers or tricks progression to take this class.

(7th: The Minimizer.) Giants are indeed powerful opponents except when they're a foot tall. It's a pity that the spell you specialise in does not work on giants for the first two levels. :smallannoyed:

None of the stuff the class gives you is worth losing a caster level and some skill ranks for.

(8th: The Wasp.) It has some issues. One, d4 hit die and rewards being in melee combat. With no armour. Having to go up to nine levels specifically in a mid-BAB class also hurts. Why nine, anyway? I could see it on a cat class (See also: the fact that Iot7V is seven levels long) but normally PrCs aren't exactly nine levels long. Why does shrink have a duration limit when it's your main selling point? You can only spend a single hour in fine size at eighth level. That's awful for something that's meant to be your key feature.

Ant strength is weird. It's a buff to strength on a class which shouldn't be relying on strength. "Original dexterity" is badly defined - you should really use "Base dexterity" because no record is usually kept of a creature's original dexterity that they had at level 1 (and it gets worse if you use, say, the variety of young creature rules which increase the kid's dexterity). The level 6 version incidentally is based on the ability which is already too limited in duration.

The Bigger They Are doesn't negate the creature's own grapple bonuses from size so good luck using it reliably. It also isn't quite clear on how it functions (how do you get off, how do they get you off, what happens if...) and you shouldn't make up new rules if you're not prepared to explain how they work in great detail.

Puny power is awful. It forces three die rolls to use successfully and doesn't do anything that's more than situational. Stinging strike is a meh "You can now actually use these features properly" feature, without which pinpoint strikes is pointless because you do about 1 damage without SA.

The whole class is a nice idea, but an inglorious mess in play. Source: I playtested it.

(9th: The Mycologist.) For all this class might have been, it doesn't actually do anything at the moment, so...

(10th: The Sneaky Hand.) It requires rogue abilities and doesn't progress them, requires spells and halfheartedly progresses them, and provides a bevy of useless features. Peerless pickpocket is skill focus on an ego trip, I Like This! is a first-level spell only it requires a skill check, Nothing is Too Big doesn't allow you to steal unusually dense objects because it's worded terribly, easy casting is something that the only class that can easily single-class their way into sneaky hand already has, They Never Saw It Coming makes it easier for rogues to detect your pickpocket attempts, Nothing is Safe is... a couple of skill tricks, I think, Arcane Lifting requires you to trade spell slots (good) for piddly bonuses (not good).

Soul stealing is usually awful: they get a will save at a +15 bonus against your SoH at a +12 bonus, which means that you're not even guaranteed to manage it, and it takes a minute, and you have to guess what class features your target has. However, if it does work, you can steal an epic cleric's casting, with predictable results. Ugh.

(11th: The Dermagraphter.) A class based around... moving the psionic equivalent of potions? Also, assuming you have 6 cantrips per day, it would take 13 years and 255 days to get the 5000 hours of practice with the preserve organ cantrip. This seems to be a class based entirely around doing something which is exceptionally niche. Also, the process of transferring skin is usually called grafting, not graphting.

(12th: The Hedge Mage.) You walk into the room of Jon Smith, the mighty hedge mage. After having tracked him down for hours, confounded by literal thousands of traps, illusions, and other nasties, you finally break into his fort, constructed via excessive use of fabricate. You look into the room, and gasp - the words "I have explosive runes at-will" are plastered over every inch of the room.

You take 106728 points of force damage. Would you like to roll a new character?

I don't like classes which make me weaker, even if only in a specific way. Although in this class's case, it doesn't matter so much because of how crazily strong it makes you. The test-based prerequisite has nothing to do with the class. Your skills make factota cry. Witch Knowledge may or may not cause a bunch of stuff to change retroactively (skill points?).

Expanded Spell Knowledge is weird because you want to have the shortest possible class spell list yourself - you don't want cleric, because flame strike is available earlier for a druid (so you'll never get it as a cleric but will as an assassin, if you could enter from assassin, precisely because flame strike isn't an assasin spell). But you don't want assassin otherwise you won't get greater invisibility early...) It also allows you to get a lot of spells at unusually low lev... ah, cultist (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?543040-What-tier-is-this-class-Adept). Just read the cultist thread. And sincle you entered from a spontaneous caster, this means that you can cast all spells all the time. You can knock every door you come across, haste the party every combat, create enough water to cause floods...

I would recommend entering from something with a very short spell list on that basis. Probably take sorcerer 1, paladin 5, and then progress the paladin casting with hedge mage because you don't need to progress the spontaneous casting you used as a prerequisite. Then at ECL 10, you can cast Haste at will (take that, swiftblades!), you're still a divine caster and can still cast in full plate, and you have a decent BAB. Oh, and it gets worse, because you can take battle blessing and cast every spell of fourth level or below as a swift action at-will. Polymorph at will is basically shapechange. Fabricate, planar binding, you name it, you can cast it, and if it's normally a full round it's a standard action now, and if it's normally a standard action it's a swift action now. Spell chain makes this even more ridiculous: you turn into a nasty beastie, attack, and start a spell chain, then you cast more spe... look, it's a mess, and more importantly it's a mess even if you don't abuse the wording like this.

Cantrip defense doesn't work because you don't need a check to counterspell except with dispel magic and related.

Spell transfusion removes material and XP components. I hope you realise this is horribly abuseable.

Oh, and at epic you just cast like a normal spellcaster, and can access epic spells and cast ninth-level spells at will. Oddly, it seems like you might not actually need to be able to cast fifth-level spells normally to get the fifth-level spells at will (and so on for all the levels up to ninth) so you can still do the paladin trick.

(13th: The Hive Master.) Probably needs spellcasting, doesn't advance it without special use of their third-level ability. Requires level 10, but at ECL 13, you can cast as a 28th-level cleric, paladin or favoured soul. Glorious. The power of this class is not so much the swarms (I would leave them at home) but the bonuses you get for having them.

(14th: The Intern.) So if I'm getting this right, you level faster but you're terrible until level 11? Also just taking levels in the class at all causes Quantum Dragon Disciple issues. I can't see this as possibly being a good idea. In the second instance, it's clearly a base class, not a prestige class. This isn't a design that works; sorry.

gawwy
2017-11-30, 04:03 PM
1st: The Leveller (and spells)
2nd: Minimizer
3rd: The Hive Master
Most original: The Dermagraphter
Most likely to see play: Minimizer
Best use of theme: Sparrow Rider

sengmeng
2017-11-30, 05:15 PM
1) Sparrow rider

2) Minimizer

3) Dermagraphter

Most likely to see play: Wasp

Most original: Dermagraphter

Best use of theme: Atomos mage

Lanth Sor
2017-11-30, 09:33 PM
1st- Wasp
2nd- Dust Devil
3rd- Sparrow Rider
Best Use of Theme- Dust Devil
Most Original- Dermagraphter
Most Likely to See Play- Atmos Mage

Westhart
2017-12-01, 08:08 AM
Voting closed, will tally up votes and everything today.

Westhart
2017-12-04, 10:47 AM
Congratulations to the winners of this month's contest, head over to the chat thread to discuss what topic you all want for the next contest :smallsmile:.