Eldritch Muse - The musical warlock (PEACH) 3.5

[Mangles]

Eldritch Muse

The Eldritch Muse has delved into the dark secrets of their bardic music enabling them the channel chaotic energies through their music.

Requirements:
Must be able to Inspire Competence with bardic music.
Must be able to use Invocations.

{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |

Spellcasting

1st|+0|+0|+0|+2|Eldritch Music,|

+1 Level of Invocations

2nd|+1|+0|+0|+3|Rhythmic Blast,(lesser)|

+1 Level of Invocations

3rd|+2|+1|+1|+3|Suggestion|

+1 Level of Invocations

4th|+3|+1|+1|+4|Chord of Power (lesser)|

+1 Level of Invocations

5th|+3|+1|+1|+4|Inspire Courage, |

+1 Level of Invocations

6th|+4|+2|+2|+5| Inspire greatness, |

+1 Level of Invocations

7th|+5|+2|+2|+5|Inspirational Rhythmic Blast (Greater)|

+1 Level of Invocations

8th|+6|+2|+2|+6|Song of freedom |

+1 Level of Invocations

9th|+6|+3|+3|+6|Supreme Rhythmic Blast (Dark)|

+1 Level of Invocations

10th|+7|+3|+3|+7|Inspire Courage, Melodic Inspiration|

+1 Level of Invocations

[/table]

Alignment: Any
Hit Die: 1d6

Class Skills:
Balance, Bluff, Concentration, Craft, Decipher script, Disguise, Escape Artist, Intimiate, Jump, Knowledge (Arcane, The Planes, Religion, History), Listen, Perfom, Proffession, Sense Motive, Slight of hand, Speak Language, Spellcraft, Tumble, Use Magic Device
Skill Points at Each Level: 4 + Int modifier

Weapon Proficiencies:
The Eldritch Muse gains no additional weapon proficiencies

Eldritch Music:
The Eldritch Muse continuos to gain music as a Bard does adding his Eldritch Muse levels to those of Bard for determining the amount of music per day and any other effect based on bard levels.

Rhythmic Blast (lesser):
Concentrating on your music no longer ihibits your casting of Eldritch Blast. As long as you still use a standard action to maintain your music you can cast Eldritch Blast during the same round, this takes a whole round to complete and you can do no additional actions accept take a 5 foot step. Aditionaly you may do this while playing an instrument even if you have no hands free. This invocation lasts 24 hours.

Suggestion (Sp):
A eldritch muse of 4th level or higher with 9 or more ranks in a Perform skill can make a suggestion (as the spell) to a creature that he has already fascinated. Using this ability does not break the eldritch muse’s concentration on the fascinate effect, nor does it allow a second saving throw against the fascinate effect.

Making a suggestion doesn’t count against a eldritch muse’s daily limit on bardic music performances. A Will saving throw (DC 10 + ½ bard’s level + eldritch muse’s Cha modifier) negates the effect. This ability affects only a single creature (but see mass suggestion, below). Suggestion is an enchantment (compulsion), mind-affecting, language dependent ability.

Chords of Power:
This eldritch essence invocation allows you to change your eldritch blast into a chord of power. This functions as a normal eldritch blast accept that any creature deamed a foe within your bardic music range also takes xd6 sonic damage where x is your Inspire Courage modifier. Can only be used in conjunction with Rythmic Blast, Inspirational Rythmic Blast or Supreme Rythmic Blast, anything that cannot hear due to deefness (magical or otherwise) does not suffer the damage. This also forces the creature hit by your main eldritch blast to make a will save or become shaken for 1 minute.

Inspire Courage (Su):
An Eldritch Muse can use songs, music or poetics to inspire courage in his allies (including himself), bolstering them against fear and improving their combat abilities. To be affected, an ally must be able to hear the eldritch muse's music. The effect lasts for as long as the ally hears the eldritch muse's music and for 5 rounds thereafter. An affected ally receives a +1 morale bonus on saving throws against charm and fear effects and a +1 morale bonus on attack and weapon damage rolls. This ability incease all bonuses by 1 anytime it is given. Inspire courage is a mind-affecting ability.

Inspire Greatness (Su):
A eldritch muse of 8th level or higher with 12 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use music or poetics to inspire greatness in himself or a single willing ally within 30 feet, granting him or her extra fighting capability. For every three levels a eldritch muse attains beyond 8th, he can target one additional ally with a single use of this ability (two at 11th level, three at 14th, four at 17th, five at 20th). To inspire greatness, a eldritch muse must sing or play music and an ally must hear his music. The effect lasts for as long as the ally hears the eldritch muse's music and for 5 rounds thereafter. A creature inspired with greatness gains 2 bonus Hit Dice (d10s), the commensurate number of temporary hit points (apply the target’s Constitution modifier, if any, to these bonus Hit Dice), a +2 competence bonus on attack rolls, and a +1 competence bonus on Fortitude saves. The bonus Hit Dice count as regular Hit Dice for determining the effect of spells that are Hit Dice dependant. Inspire greatness is a mind-affecting ability.

Inspirational Rhythmic Blast (Greater):
As per Rhythmic Blast except additionally, You are so in tune with the music that you gain a + 2 insight to ac and Heart of the song during the round you use your Rhythmic Blast. This invocation lasts 24 hours.

Song of Freedom (Sp)
A eldritch muse of 10th level or higher with 15 or more ranks in a Perform skill can use music or poetics to create an effect equivalent to the break enchantment spell (caster level equals the character’s bard level). Using this ability requires 1 minute of uninterrupted concentration and music, and it functions on a single target within 30 feet. A eldritch muse can’t use song of freedom on himself.

Supreme Rhythmic Blast (Dark):
As per Inspirational Rhythmic Blast except additionally, Delving further into the chaos within the music allows you additional abilities. All your saves are increaed by +2 and you gain damage reduction 2/-. This invocation lasts 24 hours.

Melodic Inspiration:
The Eldritch Muse can create songs so intwinded with magic it uplifts even the worst spirits. Causes Inspire Courage, Competence, Greatness, and Heroics to have their bonuses increased by 2. This stacks with any other ability to increase their bonuses.


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Spoiler

Show

This is the orignial class table, left here mainly to show what changes have been made.

{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |

Spellcasting

1st|+0|+0|+0|+2|Eldritch Music,|

+1 Level of Incantations

2nd|+1|+0|+0|+3|Inspire competence|

+1 Level of Incantations

3rd|+2|+1|+1|+3|Rythmic Blast,|

+1 Level of Incantations

4th|+3|+1|+1|+4|Suggestion|

+1 Level of Incantations

5th|+3|+1|+1|+4|Chord of Power, (1d6)|

+1 Level of Incantations

6th|+4|+2|+2|+5|Inspire Courage,|

+1 Level of Incantations

7th|+5|+2|+2|+5|Rythmic Blast (+2 AC)|

+1 Level of Incantations

8th|+6/+1|+2|+2|+6|Inspire greatness|

+1 Level of Incantations

9th|+6/+1|+3|+3|+6|Chord of Power, (Frightfull blast)|

+1 Level of Incantations

10th|+7/+2|+3|+3|+7|Song of freedom|

+1 Level of Incantations

11th|+8/+3|+3|+3|+7|Rythimic Blast (Heart of the song)|

+1 Level of Incantations

12th|+9/+4|+4|+4|+8|Inspire Courage,|

+1 Level of Incantations

13th|+9/+4|+4|+4|+8|Chord of Power (2d6)|

+1 Level of Incantations

14th|+10/+5|+4|+4|+9|Inspire heroics|

+1 Level of Incantations

15th|+11/+6/+1|+5|+5|+9|Rythmic Blast (+2 all saves)|

+1 Level of Incantations

16th|+12/+7/+2|+5|+5|+10|Mass suggestion|

+1 Level of Incantations

17th|+12/+7/+2|+5|+5|+10|Chord of Power (3d6)|

+1 Level of Incantations

18th|+13/+8/+3|+6|+6|+11|Inspire Courage,|

+1 Level of Incantations

19th|+14/+9/+4|+6|+6|+11|Rythmic Blast (Damge reduction 2/-)|

+1 Level of Incantations

20th|+15/+10/+5|+6|+6|+12|Melodic Inspiration|

+1 Level of Incantations

[/table]

----------------------------------------------------------------------

A little about this class

I'm currently playing a warlock/bard in a PBP game I'm in and while searching for a prestige class that would allow me to utilize the bards music and the warlocks incantations I came up with nothing. Now I'm fairly new to D&D so this may be out there, (and please tell me if it is and what book so i can find it), but i decided to create a class that allows this kind of mixing. Hopefully its not to broken and I look forward to all your criticism as I am hoping to get this homebrew into the adventure if its good enough. :D

[Omegonthesane]

I'm seeing no real problems, but why is it a 20 level class? You aren't going to reach Eldritch Muse 20 pre-Epic, is it just that sort of game?

[Mangles]

no not at all, we are all level 3 characters and we did have to start out in at least 2 classes, but once i got started i really just wanted to finish it all up with a nice capstone and all.

[Eldan]

As written, you can enter this class at level 4. This presents two problems: first, it's too low for a prestige class: I don't know of any you can enter before level 6. So, increase the requirements: more eldritch blast, more perform skills.

Second: even when you enter it at level 4, it will go up to level 23, which is epic territory. Classes work differently in the epic levels. I could maybe, maybe understand the argument for making it a 15 level class you can enter at level 6 (which, as far as I know, also never happened before), but 20 levels is too much. In the epics, you don't get normal saving throw and BAB advances from classes, for starters.

So, I'll go on and read the class itself now, rather than just glance at the table, but be aware that it breaks a few of the most basic design paradigms for 3.5

[Eldan]

Okay, then. Let's see.

First question: Eldritch Blast. Does it gain more damage dice? It's probably included in "+1 levels of invocation", but you should clarify it.

Rhythmic Blast: these I see as somewhat problematic: first, I can't quite see why Rythmic blast should be a shape invocation, as the blast's shape doesn't in fact change. Anyway, still reasonable.
Now, I don't know them all by heart, but I don't think invocations actually gain more power as your level increases. This is a design decision, mostly, but what I'd do: Split this up in maybe three invocations:

Rhythmic Blast (lesser): let's you cast while maintaining music.

Greater Rythmic Blast (greater): as rythmic blast, but also gives the following boni: Heart of the Song (I don't actually know what this is, I must admit. A bard spell? In that case, specify who is affected by it and how long it lasts. I'd say as long as the bardic music, probably.), +2 morale bonus to AC (this is important: unknown boni shouldn't be used too often).

Supreme Rythmic Blast (Fell): as Greater Rythmic blast, but all allies also gain a +2 morale bonus to saves and DR 2/--. (Here, you should give quite a few more boni. Also, find a few boni that stack with the existing ones from the bardic music you are already maintaining, or say that invoking this increases the boni from bardic music, as certain spells and feats do.)

Chords of Power: I'd make this a normal eldritch essence, really. Perhaps similar to vitriolic blast and so on, make it not add more damage, but convert the damage to sonic and add another bonus. Deafness, perhaps, and bonus damage, as you already suggested. Also, just as an idea: do not give a flat Xd6 damage bonus, but add a bonus damage equal to "Inspire Courage bonus x d6".

All in all, I'd start by condensing this class down into a normal 10 level PrC.

[Mangles]

hmm as written i thought you could enter at level 3, but in any case i didnt know there were limits to the level you could enter a prestige class nor did i think that going above level 20 had such a strong influence if you took prestige classes. I'll try and change all this and condense the classes a bit.

First question: Eldritch Blast. Does it gain more damage dice? It's probably included in "+1 levels of invocation", but you should clarify it.

I belive this is covered in one of the complete books (arcane i think) but yes eldritch blast does scale as if you were taking warlock levels.

Rhythmic Blast: these I see as somewhat problematic: first, I can't quite see why Rythmic blast should be a shape invocation, as the blast's shape doesn't in fact change. Anyway, still reasonable.
Now, I don't know them all by heart, but I don't think invocations actually gain more power as your level increases. This is a design decision, mostly, but what I'd do: Split this up in maybe three invocations:

The changes for rhythmic blast are great, i did want a single ability that scaled throught the class but you are right there is no president for this using invocations, however you have come up with a perfect solution. THANKS.

Chords of Power: I'd make this a normal eldritch essence, really. Perhaps similar to vitriolic blast and so on, make it not add more damage, but convert the damage to sonic and add another bonus. Deafness, perhaps, and bonus damage, as you already suggested. Also, just as an idea: do not give a flat Xd6 damage bonus, but add a bonus damage equal to "Inspire Courage bonus x d6".

Once again some great ideas however i do not want to give deafness as it means this ability can't be used on that creature again (maybe this is a good thing maybe not) i do like the scaling with inspire courage however which i shall impliment and this will probably cut my class down alot as i can just remove all the dead levels :D

EDIT: Forgot about song of the heart
Song of the Heart (requires 6 ranks in a Perform skill to take) causes Inspire Courage, Competence, Greatness, and Heroics to have their bonuses increased by one. Fascinate, Suggestion, and Mass Suggestion have their save DC increased by 1.

[onthetown]

As Eldan said, you can enter at a fairly low level. A lot of the fun in taking prestige classes is building up the requirements to meet them and then finally getting your first level in it. Also, the full 20 levels takes up your entire character's career and more because you'll have to go epic to max out the class. With this, it ends up to be a career choice: you can't advance in your original class at all if you want to get to the good stuff with the prc, so you devote your character to the prc and at the same time lose a lot of neat abilities from the warlock and bard classes.

I notice there's a lot of bardic abilities in there anyway, but if you condensed the Eldritch Muse to 10 levels or even 7, you could bump up the requirements and unlock a lot of them before you take the prc. This way, you would have all that stuff and then just be able to focus on the new abilities you've created. Having a bard multiclass take a prc and get abilities they would get anyway isn't much incentive to actually take it.

[Omegonthesane]

As Eldan said, you can enter at a fairly low level. A lot of the fun in taking prestige classes is building up the requirements to meet them and then finally getting your first level in it.

I agree with just about everything you're saying, but...

This is a theurge class. Theurge classes that require the sacrifice of 3 levels SUCK. A 16 Fighter can provide more necromancy from the Leadership feat than a 3 Necromancer/3 Cleric/10 Mystic Theurge.

Also, it should be able to take you straight to level 20 (though not further) because it's a theurge class. Don't wanna be left high and dry with bard powahs now do we?

[Mangles]

NEW TABLE, leaving it here until I look over it further, This way i dont loose the old one
{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special |

Spellcasting

1st|+0|+0|+0|+2|Eldritch Music,|

+1 Level of Incantations

2nd|+1|+0|+0|+3|Rythmic Blast,(lesser)|

+1 Level of Incantations

3rd|+2|+1|+1|+3|Suggestion|

+1 Level of Incantations

4th|+3|+1|+1|+4|Chord of Power, (xd6 + fritghfull blast)|

+1 Level of Incantations

5th|+3|+1|+1|+4|Inspire Courage, |

+1 Level of Incantations

6th|+4|+2|+2|+5| Inspire greatness, |

+1 Level of Incantations

7th|+5|+2|+2|+5|Greater Rythmic Blast (Greater)|

+1 Level of Incantations

8th|+6|+2|+2|+6|Song of freedom |

+1 Level of Incantations

9th|+6|+3|+3|+6|Supreme Rythmic Blast (Dark)|

+1 Level of Incantations

10th|+7|+3|+3|+7|Inspire Courage, Melodic Inspiration|

+1 Level of Incantations

[/table]

Also i would like it if a bard who takes this class could start leveling in his bard class from the combination of his prc and bard, for instance using this table i am aiming for bard 3/warlock 2 as entry level requirements, meaning the bard takes this till level 13 and has all those bard abilities (minus spells) if the bard should choose to level beyond this i wouldn't like him to have to re-obtain the same skills. Is there anything like this or am i just confusing?

EDIT: table didnt turn out right, now it should

EDIT OF EDIT: IF i leave it as is and a player takes it beyond level 20 shouldnt that just change the saves and BAB the way a player does when taking a second class. Is this a viable option so I can have a 20 level PrC

[The Neoclassic]

If you really want a 20-level prestige class, you could always break it up and have a 10 level prestige class... And then an Epic Eldritch Muse prestige class with 10 levels which requires the capstone ability of the regular prestige class.

I don't know much about eldritch blasts or incantations or anything, so I can't contribute much to crunch. I do have a few suggestions though.

Requirements: It's "Perform" not "preform." I'd also raise it to 8 ranks. This way, as long as you take bard for your fifth level, you can get it to that and still enter the prestige class for your sixth level (if I understand multiclass skills correctly, which I admit I may not as they've always been a headache for me). More importantly, this sets a clear, easy bar to make sure no one enters it before they've completed five other, base-class levels. I'd change the bardic music requirement to just "Must have Bardic Music class feature" or "Must be able to Inspire Competence with bardic music."

Class Features: The wording for the Rythmic Blasts seems redundant. You could change it to Rythmic Blast (lesser), Rythmic Blast (greater), and Rythmic Blast (supreme) OR: Rhythmic Blast, Greater Rhythmic Blast, Supreme Rhymic Blast. It just doesn't make sense to have greater both preceding and following the ability, for example. Oh, google also informs me that it's properly spelled "Rhythmic"

Oh, also- it'd help to specify in your post's title if this is 3.5 or 4.0. Yes, I don't know 4.0 enough to easily say if this is or not. I *think* not, but clarification is always good.

Anyway, looks good overall and hope I was at least a bit helpful!

[Eldan]

Ah, so it is Rhythmus. I know that I often used to misspell that word years ago, so when he spelled it without an "h" I was confused and adapted his spelling.

[The Neoclassic]

Ah, so it is Rhythmus. I know that I often used to misspell that word years ago, so when he spelled it without an "h" I was confused and adapted his spelling.

It's not a big deal! I was uncertain myself, which is why I had to google it to check. I just prefer seeing really neat prestige classes with excellent spelling and grammar, so I generally include that in my comments. Hopefully most folks appreciate it...

[Mangles]

*sigh* i just went to make all the changes and lost the post. But i will be making some changes soon including spelling :D

Keep the input coming.

[Mangles]

I Edited the main class changing as many features and spelling mistakes as i thought nessicary

Made some cahgnes to Rhytmic Blast, the largest that it now lasts for 24 hours and doesnt need to be aplied as a blast shape, it didnt really shape the blast at all

[DracoDei]

You know you COULD make it 15 levels... doesn't HAVE to be 10 or 20 exactly... or 14 if you make the entry so it is your 7th level... do whatever works!

Also, since it is a PrC, it shouldn't give quadrupal skill points at first level.

[Mangles]

thanks I didn't pick that up the skill points so that is fixed now. Please keep the advice coming, the only problem i have with the class now is if a character takes it they basically can't go back to bard

[bogsnes]

A typo BTW, you are writing +1 levels of incantations, when it should be invocations, incantations is what the truenamer homebrew on these boards are using...

[Mangles]

more typo's fixed, is this balanced is my main issue

[Mangles]

I have found some items home brewed by another GITP member that i think fit very well with this

Rock
Price: +1 bonus
Your performance affects others with enormous force and brutality. When performing, as a swift action, you may deal 1 sonic damage per level (Fortitude half) to a single target within range of your performance.

Hard Rock
Price: +4 bonus
As rock, but 1d4 sonic damage/level (Fortitude half). In addition, the bard may make an Intimidate check to demoralize as a free action against a creature who fails his Fortitude save.

Metal
Price: +6 bonus
As hard rock, but 1d6 sonic damage/level (Fortitude half). In addition, the bard can silence his target if it fails its Fortitude save; this lasts until the bard's next turn. If the bard succeeds on an opposed bardic bonus check, this can also function against other bards.

Heavy Metal
Price: +8 bonus
As metal, but 1d8 sonic damage/level (Fortitude half). In addition, when making Intimidate checks to demoralize enemies, the bard's target is now frightened instead of shaken.

Death Metal
Price: +10 bonus
As heavy metal, but 1d10 sonic damage/level (Fortitude half). In addition, the bard cannot be magically silenced.


These were created by Baron Corm here and is currently the reason I'm playing a warlock bard. Would items such as these break this class. (This class is built around the instrument being the weapon.)