Rider PrC Version 2.0 (PEACH)

[D Knight]

Ok all this is my first homebrew that I am posting and I am a noob so plz help my noodness and me. Oh I use allot of aberrations so sorry now.

The Rider

Requirements:
Skills: 9 ranks Ride, 10 ranks craft (blacksmith)
Feats: Mounted Combat, Ride by Attack

Hit Die: D8
Class Skills: Ride, Knowledge (Geo), Intimidate, Bluff, Craft, Concentration, Handle Animal, Survival, Tumble, and Spot
Skill points : as Ranger

Level | Base Attack<br>Bonus | Fort Save | Ref Save | Will Save | Special
1st|
+1|
+2|
+2|
+0|Ride
2nd|
+2|
+3|
+3|
+0|Need for Speed, Wear and Tear
3rd|
+3|
+3|
+3|
+1|Takeout
4th|
+4|
+4|
+4|
+1|
5th|
+5|
+4|
+4|
+1|Wear and Tear, NfS
6th|
+6|
+5|
+5|
+2|
7th|
+7|
+5|
+5|
+2|
8th|
+8|
+6|
+6|
+2|NfS, Wear and Tear
9th|
+9|
+6|
+6|
+3|
10th|
+10|
+7|
+7|
+3|Rider of the Lands, Wear and Tear, Sonic Boom

Class Features:

Weapon and Armor Proficient: you gain with Guisarme, Lance, and Ranseur. You gain no new armor proficient.

Vehicle of Choice: At first level you select one type of vehicle (ex. motorcycle, or dune buggy exctra). Your VoC takes 1 week to build (DC 25 blacksmith) no matter how you construct it. If you fail any check during the week add 1 to the DC the next day but for every 5 over the DC the next days DC is 1 less. You may upgrade your VoC at the given level with out trouble.

Need for Speed: At 2nd level, a Rider adds 5 feet to the base land speed of his mount. This bonus increases by an additional 5 feet every third level thereafter. This bonus stacks with magical enhancements to base land speed, such as Haste.

Takeout: while charging or doing a ride by attack on another person that is mounted you can attempt to knock the other person off their mount with out risk to yourself.

Wear and Tear: out gain Energy Ristance/5 to sonic damage at level 2 then again at level 5 ER/10 again at 8 ER/15.You gain energy immunity at lv10.

Rider of the Lands: at level 10 you can move over difficult terrain without penitently.

Sonic Boom: you and your mount use a full round action to move up to 600 straight feet. This causes 6d6 sonic damage to everyone inside the line and -1d6 for every 5 feet away from the line until it deals no dmg.2/day

VoC 2 table & 3 table
Level | Ride Check Bounes | Attack Bounes | Bounes Damage | Special | Hardness | Hit Point Bounes

1st-2nd|
+2|
+1|
+0|Upgrade|
+5|
+5
3-4|
+2|
+2|
+1||
+5|
+5
5-6|
+4|
+3|
+2|Upgrade|
+10|
+5
7-8|
+6|
+4|
+3||
+10|
+5
9-10|
+8|
+5|
+4|upgrade|
+15|
+10

Upgrades : pick one from the following list at second and then aging as the table above states.
Airal : your VoC now has a fly speed equal to BLS. Good maneuverability
Aquatic : your VoC now has a swim speed equal to BLS
Alarm system : anyone besides you touching your VoC will be blasted for 8D6 sonic damage (no save). Also deafened for 1D6+2 rounds. DC 25 search and disable device
Burn out : You create a wall of smoke giving you and your enemies full cover. It lasts for a number of rounds equal to dex+2.usable 2/encounter
New Treads : you can enchant your tires with one spell of 5th or greater or two spells of 4th or lower. That spell cannot change.
Stereo system : all sonic damage is increased by 2D6.

[D Knight]

Bump.

hey so you all are saying that this is not over or under powered and is ready for testing with any changes. please rip this to pieces and PEACH though chuncks.

[Psionic Dog]

Well, ok.
*starts poking holes until the class looks like a sieve* :smallbiggrin:

•Why does the rider have a good will and a poor fortitude? that feels... backwards.

•Speaking of saves, your save progression is off. Save should be:


{table] Level | Poor | Good
1st | +0 | +2
2nd | +0 | +3
3rd | +1 | +3
4th | +1 | +4
5th | +1 | +4
6th | +2 | +5
7th | +2 | +5
8th | +2 | +6
9th | +3 | +6
10th | +3 | +7[/table]


• It needs more class skills. Add two or three more. Suggestions include: Concentration, Handle Animal, Survival, Tumble, and Spot.

• More abuilities. Take out and Need for speed are nice, but aren't enough to entice someone to take this class. Suggestions: Make NFS bonuse ever 3 levels (2,5,8), have Wear and Tear come at 4th and 8th, and add something cool in at 7th, or give it free feat progression like a ranger at 2nd, 7th, and 10th. "Something Cool" might include Evasion and uncany dodge while mounted, but something more powerful and flaverful would be better.

•Spells. Speed is nice, but this feels a little underpowered. Adding minor spell casting would help a little. Have it cast spells as a druid of 1/2 it's rider level (rounded down) that would stack with any other druid levels it has. If it doesn't have spells, the 'something cool' mentioned above will need to be really really cool and improve at 10th level.

Edit: When your done, look at the Figher and Ranger, and ask yourself: Is this as good (or better) than those classes? Keep improving the class until you can say 'yes'
Then look at the horizan walker and assassin and ask: Is this class more powerfull than them? If 'yes' you've gone too far and need to tone down the class.

[Reinboom]

Ah, it's a difficult class to read.. I can attempt to rewrite this for you, however, I'll need a bit more info..

Ride: Is this mount exactly like the paladin's mount? (called from the celestial realm, and all?) Please be more exact.

need for speed: what's "BLS" ?

takeout: what's the requirements for knocking them off? save DC? hit? both?

wear and tear: how does this reflect what the class is about?


Also, your saves are strange, and this overall appears to be more of a 5 level or possibly even a 3 level class. It's rather weak and lackluster.

[Magnor Criol]

-E- Dadgum, I wrote a lot here. O_O I really hit a vein. D Knight, though it starts out negative, keep reading - I'm not bashing you the whole time or anything. =p

Actually, I'm fairly certain most people are saying "This really doesn't hold my interest enough to read through it and comment on it."

Your grammar and writing style are, frankly, abhorrent. Run-on sentences and unnecessary abbreviations stack with bad spelling for the purposes of motivating people to read through it.

Even beyond simple grammar errors, though, your abilities are worded very poorly; they don't fit in with other DnD class ability descriptions, and there's lots of things that you expect the person reading this to know ahead of time.

For example, you have:

Need for Speed: At 2nd lv and every even lv after add 10 feet to BLS of your mount.it stacks with magical enhanments to BLS also.
When it really should be something more along the lines of:

Need For Speed (Ex): At 2nd level, a Rider adds 10 feet to the base land speed of his mount. This bonus increases by an additional 10 feet every even level thereafter. This bonus stacks with magical enhancements to base land speed, such as Haste.

Beyond all formatting issues, though, this class seems very overpowered. I'm no sage of what's balanced and what's not, as I haven't gotten to work with lots of those sorts of mechanics in action much. But based on what I see in the class abilities of all the other classes I see, these are all very strong. Getting +10 to base land speed every other level? That's horrendously fast, when you think about it. I know that there's a fluff-ish draw to the idea that a good rider knows how to coax more from his mount, but these numbers are above and beyond that, into the realm of ridiculousness.

I'd suggest toning it down to something like a +10 bonus at second level, and maybe - maybe - one other at the other end of the progression, like level 8 or 9. If you really want a constant speed increase, make the increment smaller - a +5 bonus - and less frequent, so it's every three levels, starting at level 1. They'd end up with a +20 bonus to base land speed by the end, which considering that's on a mount - who's already fast - is quite impressive.

The "Wear and Tear" ability likewise needs to be toned down. 10 resistance is pretty hefty; getting in the middle of the class, and getting it twice, is overmuch. Again, tone it down, either by cutting out an iteration or by lessening the bonus and spreading it thinner - but this one would have to be much thinner. Perhaps they get resistance 2 to some sort of energy at level 2, and every level after that the resistance increases by one (to 3 at level 3, and so on.)

The "Create-A-Mount" option is exceedingly, painfully vague. You really need to set lots of limits on this, otherwise people will use it as it's written to justify creating a giant wheeled golem with lasers for eyes in one week.

This is actually a big part of the class, though - it's all based on the idea of a rider, and I'm guessing from the fact you're letting someone build a mount and from the various other abilities that you're probably imagining someone like a motorcycle-riding badarse. So let's think about the idea behind this class in context of this ability for a second:

You say that they "gain a mount" like a pally's special mount. However, anyone really interested in this PrC is going to come from one of two camps:
A) They're mounted-combat based warriors already, which means almost certainly that they already have a mount-granting ability, or
B) As per what I think your inspiration for the class was, mechanically apt guys who want to ride their machine across creation.
So, which are you trying to go for?

If you're trying to go for group A, those who already base themselves on riding an animal into combat, then I strongly suggest making having a mount (meaning, either a class ability that gives one, a feat that gives you one, or a suitable substitute) be an entry requirement, and doing away with this ability entirely.

If you're going for group B, then you should make the entry requirements more themed that way. Add in a Craft(Blacksmithing) minimum rank requirement, for example. You should then get rid of the part of the Ride ability that grants you an animal, instead just talking about the mechanical ride. Describe the limits on the vehicle they can create, the parameters of creating it, and such. Talk about how this vehicle is their Vehicle of Choice, and it gains some special benefits from the get-go I'll let you decide them, but perhaps Ride check bonuses or attack / damage bonuses while on this chosen vehicle only. On the chance that a character entering this class would have already built themselves a vehicle, allow them the option of just designating a single vehicle they're used to as their Vehicle of Choice. Either way, all bonuses from the class pertaining to actions taken while on a vehicle, unless otherwise stated, apply only when you're on your Vehicle of Choice.

Overall, this has a lot of potential; that's proven by how much I just wrote here. =p DnD needs more mounted combat-based classes. But it's poorly worded and rather overpowered as it is, so you'll need to work on it quite a bit to make it really useable.

[Nostri]

Looks like it has a decent amount of potential though as it stands most of the abilities are just too vague or a touch on the bland side. (Also as a side note you should go over sentence structure, grammer and punctuation before posting. If things like that aren't your strong suit, and I know plenty of people who couldn't string a sentence together to save their lives despite being really intelligent in pretty much every other area get a friend to revise things for you because that is something that will get a write-up ignored out of hand for no other reason then it's annoying to read.)

The first thing that really stands out to me is the "Ride" ability. You mention a paladin's mount in passing but give no concrete rules on if that's what they gain when taking a level in this class and then go on to mention building a mount. What is this created mount exactly? Is it a steam and clockwork powered horse? Or is it closer to a golem, built like a statue with moving parts and then animated? Or perhaps even something like a jury-rigged motorcycle? This is way too vague to be appropriate for a class ability, especially a 1st level one. I'd suggest giving some examples of built mounts at the very least to give the player an idea of what they can expect to get out of the ability.

The second thing I see is the ability "Need for Speed". I like the idea of a speed increase for the character's mount. Very fitting the idea that someone who knows what they're doing can get their mount to go faster. The main thing I have wrong with it is that the mount gets too fast. By 10th level a normal, everyday riding horse will be walking at 12 mph. That's a casual stroll. If the beast is going at top speed it can travel at 48 mph. I know that doesn't sound terribly fast compared to a car but the fastest race horses have only been clocked at about 40 mph on average, and that's for a horse who's line has been specifically bred for racing and nothing else.

The next thing is that the "Wear and Tear" ability is a little much for how much you get and how fast. Other classes that grant energy resistance only grant 10 to one element and only as a capstone ability. Or they separate the ability into two abilities that each grant 5 resistance and grant one halfway through the class and the other as part of the abilities gained at 10th level.

The last thing is your saves. Having Fort be the poor save for what really seems like a combat class is kind of odd feeling. It makes more sense for someone who spends all his (or her) time traveling and wandering aimlessly atop their mount to be more resistant to various physical maladies then have a particularly strong willpower.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Alternatively read Magnor Criol and Psionic Dog's posts....seems your bump had the result you were looking for... :smallwink:

[D Knight]

thanks all for the info on my class and i did say my trend is over powered. oh and for all u english teachers out there my head moves faster that i can type.
and the answer to your question its B.

[Magnor Criol]

The main reason I brought up the grammar stuff so much is that I can guarantee that it's a large part of the reason this class has gotten few comments. Someone looks in here, sees that they have to struggle to understand what you're trying to say with the class, and decide that it's not going to be worth the effort, so they just move on. Thus: You're not getting comments because of the grammar.

Also, it's harder to comment on the balance and mechanics of a class if the wording of the abilities is unclear, since we don't really know what you mean.

You don't need to defend yourself; no one's attacking you here. We understand you're still new to 'brewing, that you tend towards overpowered-ness, and such; that's pretty normal, really. Just understand that when you threw the "please critique this" gauntlet down, you asked for some hard crits, and we're giving them to you.

If you want me to, I can try and go through and clean up your class' grammar so that it's more intelligible, and thus more appealing to commenters. That'd take time, though, so I'm not going to do it unless you say you want me to.

[D Knight]

thanks Magnor Criol i think i will take you up on that offer. if i sounded deffencive i did not mean it to come out that way. i am actuly inspired by the comments it shows my where to put my limits and how to do this later when i have another idea that i need some review on.

[D Knight]

ok all i have finished the fixes to The Rider that i am going to make unless someone has a nit pick and lets me know about it. also i am think i will alow the rider to upgrade the vehicle but must make a high DC to do so.

[Psionic Dog]

Nice, this looks much improved. Time to nitpick the little details. :smallbiggrin:

•How many skillpoints does the rider gain each level?

•The saves at L2 should be +3/+3/+0

•You forgot to update the NFS description. (Its now at 2nd and every third level thereafter.

•Need Takeout mechanics.

•Limit the Sonic Boom usage. (Per week/day/hour/or encounter) Unlimited use of this ability feels overpowered.

•Vehicle Burnout also needs a use limit.

•New Treads needs a better description. Is there a limit to what type of spells may be put on? Can the spell be changed? It looks overpowered, but it's too vague to say more.

•Alarm: This does too much damage for a no-save and needs a search/disable device DC for all the rogues out there.

[D Knight]

ok i have made some small changes to my PrC so i am ready for all of you out there in the playground to poke hole in this for the next round. so thanks for all the help so far and i would like to hear more on what needs to be fixed.

[D Knight]

come on you people had lots to say when i frist posted and i have fixed the spelling and grammar stuff. also fixed the skill point. so feel free to make my PrC look like swiss cheese and lets talk about it

[Elephant]

Okay, you asked for it.

First, specify a number of skill points per level. I shouldn't need to dig up my Player's Handbook to know that this class gets 4+Int skill points per level.

Gaining proficiency with three specific weapons seems very odd. Is the class aimed at Rogues or something?
Vehicle of Choice needs to be on your level chart.


What's a 'Bounes'? How about 'Ristance'? You need to go over your spelling again.

The Alarm system damage needs to allow a save; similar effects from other places in D&D rules allow saves. Take a look at sonic damage spells for inspiration.

Energy immunity is too powerful. The energy resistance should cap out at 15.

Sonic Boom is likeways too powerful. It covers an area bigger than most battleboards I've seen.

Takeout should work more like Trip or Disarm; if you fail, there should be a risk of falling off your own vehicle.

I don't have the energy to pick through this horrifically overpowered class any more, but HOW does a freaking MOTORCYCLE fit into a D&D campaign?

[D Knight]

Wow i do not know where to start so let satrt at the beging.

First, specify a number of skill points per level. I shouldn't need to dig up my Player's Handbook to know that this class gets 4+Int skill points per level.
I did look in the PHB at skill points and did you look in the PHB cause ranger skill pt fit my idea and feel.

Gaining proficiency with three specific weapons seems very odd. Is the class aimed at Rogues or something?
well if any one eles can give me more reach weapons i will gladly accept them

What's a 'Bounes'? How about 'Ristance'? You need to go over your spelling again.
what are you talking about here plz rephrase.

The Alarm system damage needs to allow a save; similar effects from other places in D&D rules allow saves. Take a look at sonic damage spells for inspiration.
i will do that and shall have fixed by friday.

Energy immunity is too powerful. The energy resistance should cap out at 15.Sonic Boom is likeways too powerful. It covers an area bigger than most battleboards I've seen.
ok i will change it by friday and you will have to take the other part with one of my friends.

Takeout should work more like Trip or Disarm; if you fail, there should be a risk of falling off your own vehicle.
thats want i had in mind but did not know where to look so thanks there minus the falling off part because this PrC is baced around your VoC.

I don't have the energy to pick through this horrifically overpowered class any more, but HOW does a freaking MOTORCYCLE fit into a D&D campaign?
i would have to disagree with you on that.you should see where i started from.and to the second part of your statment. have you heard of a crazyed wizard that did some thing and also its called magic. if i sound rude but you where not clear it your words and that annoyed me so sorry.