(3.5) Ambush Drake Adept PRC

[Goonthegoof]

The fluff is specific to the game in question and pretty much irrelevant here, but I'm look for answers as to mechanically how powerful this prestige class is.

[b]Ambush Drake Adept/b]
Hit Dice: d12
Requirements: Medium Humanoid
Skills: 6+int modifier per level, class skills are Hide, Listen, Move Silently and Spot.
Weapon and Armour Proficiency: An Ambush Drake Adept is does not gain any proficiencies.
Special Rules: Once you have taken a level of Ambush Drake Adept you must take the next 6 before you can take a level of a different class. When adding skill ranks due to taking a level in the Ambush Drake Adept class you must calculate your skill rank limit as if you have never had any class skills apart from Ambush Drake Adept class skills.

{table=head]Level|Base AttackBonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1st|

+1

|

+2

|

+2

|

+2

|+4 Con, -4 Int, Dragon Type, Bite and Claws, Scent

2nd|

+2

|

+3

|

+3

|

+3

|Poison, +1 NA

3rd|

+3

|

+3

|

+3

|

+3

|+1 Str, fly 15' (poor), +2 NA

4th|

+4

|

+4

|

+5

|

+5

|+3 NA, +4 hide

5th|

+5

|

+4

|

+4

|

+4

|+2 Str, fly 30' (poor), +4 NA

6th|

+6

|

+5

|

+5

|

+5

|+5 NA

7th|

+7

|

+6

|

+6

|

+6

|Breath Weapon, +6 NA
[/table]

Ability Score Adjustments: At 1st level the Ambush Drake Adept receives a +4 racial bonus to its Constitution and a -4 racial penalty to its Intelligence. At 3rd level, ambush drakes receive a +1 racial bonus to its Strength, and it receives a +2 racial bonus to its Strength at 5th level. As their Strength increases, so does their ability to fly.

Dragon Transformation: At first level the Ambush Drake Adept begins to adopt the traits of an Ambush Drake. Its type becomes dragon and it gains scent, a 1d8 primary bite attack and two 1d6 secondary claw attacks.

Poison: DC 10+con+1/2 Ambush Drake Adept levels. 1d6 dex/1d6 dex.

Natural Armour: At every level beyond first the Ambush Drake Adept's natural armour increases by 1.

Wings: At third level the Ambush Drake Adept grows wings and can fly at a speed of 15'(poor). At fifth level the speed increases to 30'.

Hide: The Ambush Drake Adept gains a +4 bonus to hide checks.

Breath Weapon (Su): Upon reaching adulthood at 7th level, an Ambush Drake Adept develops a nasty breath weapon that it can use to slow down potential prey. Capable of using their breath weapon once every 1d4 rounds, an ambush drake releases a 30-foot cone of gas that has the effect of a slow spell (duration 7 rounds). Will DC 10+1/2 Ambush Drake Adept level+con mod.


I know this looks pretty strange as a prestige class and could be entered at first level, I'm just looking to see how strong this is compared to other classes and prestige classes. If someone took their first 7 levels as this, what tier would you rate them as?

[Tanuki Tales]

Is this supposed to be like a Monster class or something?

If so, there is a thread collecting these and they also tend to give NA = Con mod or something along those lines for their beasties.

[Warpwolf16]

I like the idea behind it, but how its worded seems bland. Also do ambush drakes have wings? I believe they dont, or that may be something else I have in mind. Some problems I see are as followed.

1.The fact it takes seven levels to get to the full force of the class. Maybe five levels would work better.

2.This reminds me of a Dragon Shaman with the fun stuff stripped off the class to seven levels of burnt out waste.

3.You give him increases and decreases in the ability points, few classes do that but its possible.

4.Why not give it a similar ability to the Bear Warrior class, once reaching its full potential it can become a Ambush Drake for so many rounds per day.

5.If you want to, you can replace the idea of gaining the dragon type you can give them the Dragonblood subtype at level one.

[DracoDei]

I assume the poison is on the bite only, and not the claws (let alone manufactured weapons)? You need to specify. Also the DC is going to be very very low. Most official PrCs scale DCs as 10 + Full PrC Level + Ability Mod. This is considered underpowered by many, since it starts out behind the curve, rises above it for a few levels, and then starts declining. Using Hit-dice or even ECL tends to be much more competitive... then again, this IS an at-will ability, so perhaps simply using the formula I gave above rather than halving the class levels would be sufficient.... and I now see it can be entered at first level, basically making it a monster class, so... yeah, probably needs to scale as 1/2 HD or 1/2 ECL.

The part about the skill points is confusing.

[Coidzor]

Weapon and Armour Proficiency: An Ambush Drake Adept is does not gain any proficiencies.

When adding skill ranks due to taking a level in the Ambush Drake Adept class you must calculate your skill rank limit as if you have never had any class skills apart from Ambush Drake Adept class skills.

Why? This is extremely unusual AFAIK, so why did you choose to give it that much of a restriction? It just seems kind of unnecessary. And could cause a character to lose skill ranks for no real reason if being entered as a prestige class like the title of the thread suggests.

The class in general probably should not be used for both natural ambush drakes and for people who want to turn into dragons. It should either be a transformational PrC or a Savage Progression class. Not both.

I mean, if they enter the class at level one, they're basically an ambush drake with... a human bonus feat...

...I'm not really seeing anything that immediately jumps out to differentiate it from the WOTC savage progression class, but I'm going to go look it up now for comparison. Ok, so you traded the telepathic link and spell resistance for natural armor bonuses.

I like the idea behind it, but how its worded seems bland. Also do ambush drakes have wings? I believe they dont, or that may be something else I have in mind. Some problems I see are as followed.

They do, but not all drakes have wings. And I believe no Linnorms or Landwyrms or Landworms have wings.

4.Why not give it a similar ability to the Bear Warrior class, once reaching its full potential it can become a Ambush Drake for so many rounds per day.

Now this is an attractive idea. A Drake Warrior PrC that turns into an ambush drake to start and then progresses up to a rage drake...

Edit: So, actual feedback:

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Ok, so, here's what I would say, for it as a transformational prestige class, you want more benefit than this gives you currently for the number of levels that are invested into it, especially since ALL levels must be taken without any chance of taking a break. So, my suggestions: Key the poison's DC off of PrC class levels rather than half HD maybe allowing 1/2 HD for the rest of the HD to be added on as well as part of the capstone, move the transformation to dragon type to level 6 or 7 and replace it with gaining dragonblood subtype at level 1, axe the clause about losing class skills and skill ranks, and either trim it down to 5-6 levels, pad out the dead levels at 4 & 6, or extend it to 10 levels with more features.

Maybe give the breath weapon at level 4, +2 NA at 1st level, +1 NA for every level after 1st, transform into an ambush drake proper with type and everything with former type and subtypes retained as (augmented X) as appropriate at level 5, key poison and breath weapon save DCs to ambush drake adept class levels rather than HD, and reduce the intelligence penalty and Con bonus to 2 each.

Poison and Breath weapons' DCs will be 15+CON that way, and so not powerful enough to justify stretching them out over as many levels. So there's no real balance concerns there at ECL 5-6 for those sorts of reflex and fortitude saves.

If you add in prerequisites, which I would recommend (so it can be entered at either 3rd as an easy entry or 5th as a normal entry PrC), you might even apply the poison to the claws. For potential pre-requisites, I'd say Track as a feat pre-req might be appropriate thematically and/or maybe the feat that grants the dragonblood subtype. Skill ranks in survival (class) and maybe knowledge nature(maybe cross-class, maybe class) or a little bit of knowledge arcana(CC)...