Inevitability
2023-01-02, 06:27 PM
The Planar Shepherd class tells us this:
EX-PLANAR SHEPHERDS
If you change to an alignment incompatible with your chosen plane, you lose access to planar shepherd class abilities. You can no longer advance in this prestige class until you atone (PHB 201). If you decide to choose a different plane, you must begin again at 1st level of the prestige class and do not benefit from abilities associated with the former plane.
What does the bolded thing mean exactly? Say we have a druid 5 / planar shepherd of syrania 5, who then changes alignment to NE and wants to become a planar shepherd of dolurrh.
1. As opposed to being an ex-paladin or ex-sacred fist, being an ex-planar shepherd isn't simply a removal of your class abilities while keeping the raw HD: you lose the actual hit dice as well! Our character would become a druid 5 who gains XP normally and soon becomes a druid 5 / planar shepherd of dolurrh 1.
2. You keep the RHD, but the levels are 'dead'. Our character becomes a druid 5 / ex-planar shepherd of syrania 5, who at next level-up becomes a druid 5 / ex-planar shepherd of syrania 5 / planar shepherd of dolurrh 1, gaining no benefit from the syrania levels without changing alignment again and atoning.
3. The entire textbox above does nothing, and our character becomes a druid 5 / planar shepherd of dolurrh 5 right away, or at worst after an atonement spell.
Case 1 is hilariously abusable and enables a sort of clunky super-retraining.
Case 2 seems needlessly harsh to planar shepherds, and has a little edge case where you can take the first level over and over, racking up a huge fortitude/will bonus (not broken obviously, but kind of weird).
Case 3 just blatantly contradicts RAW in the interest of causing as little friction as possible.
EX-PLANAR SHEPHERDS
If you change to an alignment incompatible with your chosen plane, you lose access to planar shepherd class abilities. You can no longer advance in this prestige class until you atone (PHB 201). If you decide to choose a different plane, you must begin again at 1st level of the prestige class and do not benefit from abilities associated with the former plane.
What does the bolded thing mean exactly? Say we have a druid 5 / planar shepherd of syrania 5, who then changes alignment to NE and wants to become a planar shepherd of dolurrh.
1. As opposed to being an ex-paladin or ex-sacred fist, being an ex-planar shepherd isn't simply a removal of your class abilities while keeping the raw HD: you lose the actual hit dice as well! Our character would become a druid 5 who gains XP normally and soon becomes a druid 5 / planar shepherd of dolurrh 1.
2. You keep the RHD, but the levels are 'dead'. Our character becomes a druid 5 / ex-planar shepherd of syrania 5, who at next level-up becomes a druid 5 / ex-planar shepherd of syrania 5 / planar shepherd of dolurrh 1, gaining no benefit from the syrania levels without changing alignment again and atoning.
3. The entire textbox above does nothing, and our character becomes a druid 5 / planar shepherd of dolurrh 5 right away, or at worst after an atonement spell.
Case 1 is hilariously abusable and enables a sort of clunky super-retraining.
Case 2 seems needlessly harsh to planar shepherds, and has a little edge case where you can take the first level over and over, racking up a huge fortitude/will bonus (not broken obviously, but kind of weird).
Case 3 just blatantly contradicts RAW in the interest of causing as little friction as possible.