Creating the Prince of Persia

[GolemsVoice]

Complete Scoundrel mentions the Prince of Persia (does he have a name?) as one example for a scoundrel. Since I am a great fan of the games, I thought: How could I design a DnD Prince?

For those of you who are not familiar with the Prince:
He is a human who managed to get himself in all manners of trouble, toying around with time iteself, which later on led to even more trouble.
This is difficult to create for a DnD character, and is not as important as his fighting skills. He fights with two weapons whenever he can, is very agile and tricky. Running along walls, leaping over enemies or stunts are part of his repertoir.

Does anyone have ideas for classes/prestige classes and feats?
Of course, some of the skill tricks from CS are a must.
Classes, a rogue (for the skill points and the traps), fighter (for the... fighting...) combo, maybe also acrobatic prestige classes?
He should have some feats that help him to fight with two weapons, and also some that help him doing tricks and the acrobatics he is famous for.

[Saph]

I loved the original Prince of Persia. Let's see, you'd want a class with high BAB, light or no armour, reasonable skill points, and access to acrobatic skills . . . swashbuckler?

- Saph

[Morty]

I've been thinking about that mysef, but only thing I put together was Swashbuckler(for Weapon Finnese and Acrobatic Charge)/Fighter(Bonus Feats)/Dervish(Jumping from enemy to enemy, finnesable scimitars).
That's my conclusions after playing Warrior Within.

[brian c]

I tried doing this once probably about a year and a half ago; I think I made him a Monk/Swashbuckler. There's really no way you could recreate him though, not without ending up in Epic territory.

His attributes, sands of time + warrior within (the two games I finished):
-two weapon fighting
-throw melee weapons
-two weapon defense
-improved unarmed strike (for kicks, and as a prereq)
-improved grapple (throw attacks in WW; could also argue for grapple feats that are in oriental adventures i think?)
-deflect arrows (he could deflect with his weapons when blocking)
-many many ranks in climb
-ditto for jump
-ditto for balance
-ditto for tumble
-also high ranks in knowledge(nobility and royalty), some in bluff, nothing at all in diplomacy (can you get negative ranks in something?), pretty good spot, listen, search, use rope, probably some disable device and other knowledges
-dodge, mobility, spring attack
-able to run on walls; i think there's a feat somewhere for this that has Dash as a prereq
-great reflex save, can't think of anything specifically that would indicate his fort or will saves
-flurry of blows and slow fall, he attacks way too fast and he falls pretty far (in cinematics at least) without getting hurt
-good str, dex, con, int
-decent wis
-probably fairly low cha, seeing as how much of a jerk he is sometimes
-devastating critical or something like that, for the finishing moves he has.
-im not too familiar with the nine swords stuff, but there are probably combat maneuvers that fit his style

and then if you add in two thrones (which i only played like half of, so i might be missing things):
-EWP spiked chain for dark prince (maybe its more like a whip, not exactly a D&D weapon)
-ranks in hide, move silently
-rogue levels for sneak attack
-some sort of magic item with polymorph(dark prince) ?

and there's probably more I'm forgetting. somehow it seems like that adds up to a very high level character...

edit: two more things, i wish there was a feat that let you launch yourself off of walls like he did, like roll a jump/tumble check or something and if it succeeds you can charge against an opponent within 5 feet of you if there's a wall on your other side.
2nd thing is that he might have improved sunder, i seem to recall him busting up some shields

[Amphimir Míriel]

...was a "save-game" feature!

[Yuki Akuma]

I think in order to incorporate his Dark Prince form you'd need some sort of template. I propose calling the template "Sand-Touched".

Also, no, he doesn't have a name. He's just Prince.

The Dagger of Time, and Farah's madallion, might need statting up as well...

The Dagger of Time could provide maneuvers from the Tome of Battle, such as Time Stands Still..

[Khantalas]

Yuki, stop stealing my ideas. I was just thinking of that template.

By "just", I mean "for two weeks or so".

The thing is, creating the Prince is easy. I mean, all he does is run, jump and fight. He doesn't even have that many hit points. A 3rd level warrior could be used to emulate Prince.

[cupkeyk]

Walk The Walls and Wall Jumper are the Two Tricks (from Complete Scoundrel) you are looking for.

[GolemsVoice]

Hmm, that are pretty decent ideas. Thanks to all of you.
I thought about making him evolve just like a normal DnD character would. And, the fighting style is most important to me. The artifacts and sand powers
will be at least questionable and out of setting if he'd be, for example, a Fearun character.
EDIT: The sad thing I forgot to mention is, that while my gaming group (the one I am part of, not DMing) has access to almost all DnD books, I don't. The only books I have access to are Complete Scoundrel, and Complete Adventure. But I do know most of the skills and things the core classes can do, and have a little knowlegde about most of the books.

[brian c]

Yuki, stop stealing my ideas. I was just thinking of that template.

By "just", I mean "for two weeks or so".

The thing is, creating the Prince is easy. I mean, all he does is run, jump and fight. He doesn't even have that many hit points. A 3rd level warrior could be used to emulate Prince.

You can roughly mimic him by playing a fighter, but balance and tumble are cross-class for fighters, and they don't get nearly enough skill points to do all of his acrobatics well, besides that he definitely has two weapon fighting and two weapon defense. Human fighter 3rd level gets 3 + 2 bonus feats, not enough to do a good job. A 3rd level fighter = Prince of Persia about as much as a 3rd level wizard = Gandalf.

[Khantalas]

You can roughly mimic him by playing a fighter, but balance and tumble are cross-class for fighters, and they don't get nearly enough skill points to do all of his acrobatics well, besides that he definitely has two weapon fighting and two weapon defense. Human fighter 3rd level gets 3 + 2 bonus feats, not enough to do a good job. A 3rd level fighter = Prince of Persia about as much as a 3rd level wizard = Gandalf.

Balance? Tumble? TWF?

Are we talking about the same PoP here? The game that you had to finish in one hour?

I wouldn't know, I never finished the game, though I don't think that game supported TWF and acrobatics that much.

[Ashes]

Balance? Tumble? TWF?

Are we talking about the same PoP here? The game that you had to finish in one hour?

I wouldn't know, I never finished the game, though I don't think that game supported TWF and acrobatics that much.

This discussion is about the newer incarnations of Prince of Persia. The 3D action game.

[cupkeyk]

So far I can figure:

Prince of Persia
Swashbuckler3
Monk2
FIghter2
Racial: Two Weapon Fighting
1 Two Weapon Defense
Swashbuckler Bonus Weapon Finesse
3 Combat Expertise
Monk Bonus Improved Unarmed Strike
Monk Bonus Improved Grapple
Monk Bonus Deflect Arrows
Fighter Bonus Dodge
6 Mobility
Fighter Bonus Weapon Focus (Scimitar)
9 Improved Critical
Dervish Bonus Spring Attack
12 Throw anything

Skill Tricks:
Walk the Walls, Wall Jumper

[Joran]

Balance? Tumble? TWF?

Are we talking about the same PoP here? The game that you had to finish in one hour?

I wouldn't know, I never finished the game, though I don't think that game supported TWF and acrobatics that much.

No. They are talking about "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time", a remake for the PC and the last-gen consoles (PS2 and Gamecube).

It's fully 3-D, and as the Prince you can do crazy things like run along the side of a wall, tumble under or over blades, climb like a monkey.

He also has an artifact known as the "Dagger of Time". With the Dagger, he can slow down and reverse time. He dual wields a scimitar with the dagger with great effectiveness.

There were two sequels: The Warrior Within and The Two Thrones, of which I did not play.

[Khantalas]

There were two sequels: The Warrior Within and The Two Thrones, of which I did not play.

I did. I finished them. I finished Sands of Time thrice.

[Shatenjager]

Need to give him some psychic warrior for so he can use Up the Walls. (Which he obviously has).

[cupkeyk]

Actually just taking the Swashbuckler substitution level from Complete Mage lets him use Spiderclimb as a spell like ability, that and Walk The Walls from complete scoundrel finishes all the wall walking necessities.

[Mewtarthio]

Which Dagger of Time should we use: The Sands of Time version or the Two Thrones version? Either way, there's going to be the power to use Time Regression by expending a charge. As I recall, the "slow down time" power of Sands of Time is a lot weaker than the one in the sequels: In the sequels, the Prince seems to move a bit faster than in the original. Power of Haste/Megafreeze/Whatever that WW power was? Time Stop with the ability to attack people?

The Vizier's Staff doesn't really need statting up. It basically serves to explain why he doesn't turn into a Sand Monster. Same with Farah's Medallion (except in Warrior Within, in which we learned that we really could have gone to town with our sand powers in the endgame if only we'd known the medallion's power... I did not like that game).

We'll need two Sand Creature templates: One for Sands of Time (monsters created from the uncontrolled sands) and one for the sequels (servants created with the controlled sands). Lemme try to get started:

Sand Creature (monstrous)

Size and Type

The creature's type changes to Construct (the closest I can think of that emulates this). Do not recalculate BAB, Saves, and skill points.

Speed

As base creature

Armor Class

As base creature

(I'm curious as to whether or not either of these last two entries should be changed. There's really no way to tell if they gain any "natural armor" in the games, and they appear to move at roughly human speed. What do you guys think?)

Special Attacks

A Sand Creature retains all the special attacks of the base creature and also gains the following special abilities.

Sand Teleportation (Su)

The Sand Creature may, at will, teleport as though using the dimension door spell, with a Caster Level of the Sand Creature's HD. It is too unintelligent and aggressive to use this to flee: The Sand Creature only uses this ability to pursue uncorrupted creatures.

All-consuming sands (Su)

Anyone who touches the Sand Creature, or is hit by the Sand Creature's touch attack, must make a Fortitude save (DC 10 + 1/2 Sand Creature's HD + Sand Creature's Cha modifier) or be infected by the sands. Treat this as a magical disease that deals 1d6 Con damage on a failed save, only the victim must make the save once per round. Once drained to zero Con, the victim acquires the Sand Creature template.

The Sand Creature may also perform this touch attack on a slain creature, causing it to rise again as a Sand Creature in 1d3 rounds.
(Note that the Dagger of Time, Medallion of Time, and Staff of Time render the bearers immune to these effects. That Sandtouched template that's been mentioned could be applied if someone already suffering the sand infection grabs one of these artifacts).

Special Qualities

A Sand Creature has all the special qualities of the base creature, plus the following special qualities.

Construct traits

Fast Healing 1

Sand resorbtion (Su)

If brought to 0 HP, the Sand Creature is not destroyed. Instead, it it rendered prone and helpless, as though unconscious. In 3d6 rounds, the Sands of Time will re-enter the Sand Creature's body, bringing it back to full health. In order to permanently slay the Sand Creature, one must perform a Coup de Grace with a weapon explicitly designed to prevent resurrection or else destroy the body (such as with Disintigrate).
(Note that the Dagger of Time should be given the power to permanently kill Sand Creatures with a Coup de Grace, and that it should have the power to avoid provoking Attacks of Opportunity when used in this manner.)

Water Vulnerability (Ex)

Sand Creatures are vulnerable to water and take damage from it as though it were acid. A Sand Creature reduced to 0 HP that is totally immersed in clean water is destroyed, leaving no body nor any trace of the monster.

Abilities

The Sand Creature has no Con or Int score (though it retain's the base creature's feates and can still use feats that require Int scores as the knowledge remains imprinted within the monster's form).
-4 Wis, +? Str
(I felt they should retain the feats because, even when corrupted by the sands, the Persian soldiers are better fighters than the Indian ones)

(I can't help but feel that these guys should get more than that. Some sort of bonus to a physical score appears to be in order, and probably a decrease to Wis as well)

Alignment

Always Neutral (note that the Sand Creature will attack any living being it encounters).

Now, we'll need a CR for this thing. Obviously LA is --, but I'm hesitant to even consider making a CR when it's in such an early stage of development.

[Yuki Akuma]

They should be weak against water. Perhaps treating water as acid when they touch it? And perhaps damage caused by a weapon covered in water wouldn't be healed by the monster's fast healing?

Even if you never get the chance to do it in the games, I think it would be thematically appropriate for water to act like acid, and for water-covered weapons to hurt more.

[Khantalas]

What about Dahaka? Should he be a unique inevitable or something?

[Mewtarthio]

They should be weak against water. Perhaps treating water as acid when they touch it? And perhaps damage caused by a weapon covered in water wouldn't be healed by the monster's fast healing?

Even if you never get the chance to do it in the games, I think it would be thematically appropriate for water to act like acid, and for water-covered weapons to hurt more.

Actually, you do get the chance to get a few Sand Creatures wet. In Warrior Within (and possibly Two Thrones; I forget if it's in the latter), you can toss enemies into waterfalls or shallow pools, killing them instantly. Warrior Within also has the Water Sword as a secret weapon, which (though it doesn't kill things instantly like the Ultimate Weapons in the other games) is quite powerful.

However, I don't recall this being present in Sands of Time (especially since you couldn't throw people around), and my template was based off of that game. It would make sense, though. I've been meaning to make a few edits to that anyway.

EDIT: Edits made. Could use some more feedback. Thinking of posting this to Homebrew. Talking in incomplete sentences.

What about Dahaka? Should he be a unique inevitable or something?

Big D's clearly an Outsider, but aside from not being a robot he's all Inevitable. Heck, he's even more Inevitable than some Inevitables, as far as his schtick goes: How can the Inevitability of Contractual Agreements or the Inevitability of Death (in a world with resurrection magic) hope to hold a candle to the Inevitability of Fate?

[UglyPanda]

Lots of ranks in use magic device. How else would he be able to use the dagger?

[Mewtarthio]

Lots of ranks in use magic device. How else would he be able to use the dagger?

The Dagger's an artifact. You don't necessarily need UMD for that. Besides, UMD generally involves "convincing" the item you're something you're not, or figuring out how the item works and successfully activating it without being told how. The cutscene in which the Prince first picks up the Dagger shows quite clearly how it happens: He looks it over, notices some sort of button or trigger on it, pushes it out of curiosity, and notices that it sends him back in time ten seconds. Now, it's never explained how he figures out all the other powers, so you could make a UMD case for that, or it could be that he's able to "sense" the powers as though the Sands within the Dagger are "telling" him how it works in much the same way that those sand vortices give him glimpses into the future (and ontological paradoxes, but maybe that was just the Sands protecting itself).

[Annarrkkii]

Am I the only one who finds the Diamond Mind school remarkably applicable here? I think that, at higher levels, he should snatch a few levels of Swordsage, maybe burn a feet or two on Initiator feats, and grab some mid-to-high-level maneuvers and stances.

[That Lanky Bugger]

He's gotta have some Rogue for the Stealth Kills in The Two Thrones...

I'd probably just make him a straight Rogue with a few levels of Psychic Warrior (for Up the Wall), come to think of it. He's always Psionically Focused (which allows for all that Wall Running). I'd probably give him Deadly Precision and Deep Impact for maximum Sneak Attacky goodness, but that's optional.

[TheOOB]

I don't know, the prince seems rather swordsagy to me, he shows attributes of the diamond mind, iron heart, tigers claw, shadow hand, setting sun, and a even a little desert wind.

[Yuki Akuma]

He's gotta have some Rogue for the Stealth Kills in The Two Thrones...

I'd probably just make him a straight Rogue with a few levels of Psychic Warrior (for Up the Wall), come to think of it. He's always Psionically Focused (which allows for all that Wall Running). I'd probably give him Deadly Precision and Deep Impact for maximum Sneak Attacky goodness, but that's optional.

This has been pointed out twice already, but... you don't need to be psionic to run along walls. All you need is a certain skill trick from Complete Soundral.


Also, a bonus to Strength would be fitting for the Sand Creature template. Maybe +4? With maybe a -4 penalty to Wisdom...

[Sulecrist]

I made a Prince of Persia-style character (he was actually a Prince, too) using the Swordsage rules with the Desert Wind and something Tiger schools. I really, really enjoyed it.

So, yeah. You should check out ToB.

[elliott20]

Yeah, as far as I can see, the Swordsage would work perfectly with this. If you don't have ToB, then you got your work cut out for you.

I would do a couple levels of rogue for the skill points to boost the various skills need. (as said before, you don't need the psionic classes, just a couple tricks) Take a couple levels of fighter to get the TWF and up the BAB a little, and finish off with some acrobatic class like the swashbuckler or something.

[Mewtarthio]

This has been pointed out twice already, but... you don't need to be psionic to run along walls. All you need is a certain skill trick from Complete Soundral.


Also, a bonus to Strength would be fitting for the Sand Creature template. Maybe +4? With maybe a -4 penalty to Wisdom...

I had considered a Wis penalty. At first glance, -4 seems kinda big, but then again these are mindless monsters incapable of strategy we're talking about. +4 Str seems a bit much, though. They don't seem to be that much more powerful: Just more resilient.