Prestige Class Competition Chef

[Artemis97]

Here there folks. Destro Yersul and I have been spending a lot of time watching Food Network and were inspired to make a DnD style prestige class. So here it is, the Competition Chef. It's silly, but it's meant to be a viable choice as well.


Competition Chef - Prestige Class

Hit Dice: d6

Requirements: 8 ranks Profession (Cook), Skill Focus Profession (Cook)

Class Skills: Appraise, Bluff, Concentration, Craft, Diplomacy, Gather Information, Intimidate, Knowledge (Dungeoneering), Knowledge (Geography), Knowledge (History), Knowledge (Local), Knowledge (Nature), Listen, Profession (All), Search, Sense Motive, Sleight of Hand, Speak Language, Spot, Survival

Skill Points Per Level: 6+int

Level	BAB	Fort	Ref	Will	Special
1st	+0	+2	+2	+0	Master Improviser, Food Safe
2nd	+1	+3	+3	+0	Finely Honed
3rd	+2	+3	+3	+1	Firing on All Cylinders
4th	+3	+4	+4	+1	Restaurant Quality
5th	+3	+4	+4	+1	Down to the Wire

Class Features:

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: All simple weapons plus longsword, rapier, short sword and shortbow. Proficient with light armor and shields (except tower shields).

Master Improvisor - Can extract cooking ingredients from creatures which are NOT Constructs, Elementals, or Undead. Can add their ranks in Profession (Cook) as an enhancement bonus to Survival checks while hunting and foraging.

Food Safe - Purify Food and Drink at will.

Finely Honed - The chef may spend 1 hour sharpening a bladed weapon. If they do, that blade counts as having the Keen enhancement for the next 24 hours.

Firing On All Cylinders - Haste as a spell like ability at will for self only.

Restaurant Quality - All food created by the chef counts as Masterwork, without expending additional time or money.

Masterwork Food - Grants a +1 Morale Bonus on attack rolls and Will saves for 3 hours after consumption

Down to the Wire - Can make an extra standard action on your round 3/day

[ShiningStarling]

Down to the wire should specify what sort of action it gives, half action isn't a thing (I think).

Haste at will, even self only, pretty powerful. Maybe only usable out of combat? Prevents a bit more cheese that way.

Little hectic, but a fun looking class. :D

[Destro_Yersul]

Down to the wire should specify what sort of action it gives, half action isn't a thing (I think).

Haste at will, even self only, pretty powerful. Maybe only usable out of combat? Prevents a bit more cheese that way.

Little hectic, but a fun looking class. :D

That first one is probably my fault - as Art said, we worked on the class together, and I'm predominantly a Dark Heresy player, where half actions are a thing. That should be a Standard Action.

We did make the Haste self only to prevent the Chef just buffing the entire party, but I'm open to knocking it down a peg or two further. Do you think it would be better to apply a uses/day thing like we did for Down to the Wire, or to restrict when you can use it? I don't know if there are a huge number of out of combat uses for Haste.

Thanks for the feedback! Neither of us does a huge amount of homebrew, so the comments are greatly appreciated.

[ShiningStarling]

Always nice to see people homebrew who might not normally choose to, welcome to the corner :3

For the Haste, limiting it to daily (or encounter) uses would probably be best if you were more concerned with combat. Without flavor text, I wasn't quite sure how focused on combat you wanted to be, and sort of assumed that a contest chef would be more concerned with battling culinary opponents, rather than combative ones.

As for half actions, as far as I can tell that would be a Standard Action for 3.5, the action type that lets you do things other than move.

[Temotei]

What's your caster level for your spell-like abilities?

[Gildedragon]

Why not from undead. That specification is unnecessary for the class ability.

Also maybe they can boost a potion's effectiveness... Or make a potion affect more than one person?

Profession: Cook for diplomacy checks with those who have eaten a meal? (Way to ingratiate oneself to dragons, swallow whole monsters, etc...)

Imbue certain foods with (Ex) spell like effects like good hope, heroes' feast, etc with a profession check (after all this character ought be able to produce Heroic feasts)

[Artemis97]

Down to the Wire now reads Standard Action instead of Half Action. At Dest said we've been playing too much Dark Heresy.

I really like the idea of getting a diplomacy bonus for making a meal for folks. That's good outside of combat use for the class. Who doesn't like getting a good meal? Dest and I need to discuss exactly how to implement that, but it'll be added for sure.

As for adding effects to certain foods, we're planning to make a list of things certain ingredients would add. So meals would give powers depending on available ingredients.

I originally wanted to give Hero's Feast as a spell like ability for the capstone of the class, but Dest was like "it's a 6th level spell" which would potentially give the chef access to some really nice bonuses far earlier than intended. We did apply what we felt was an appropriate bonus to the masterwork food, however.

Thank you everyone for your input. We'll be taking it all into consideration and adding more to make some extra food-related fluff and crunch. Mmm... fluffy and crunchy. Cheers!

[Temotei]

I originally wanted to give Hero's Feast as a spell like ability for the capstone of the class, but Dest was like "it's a 6th level spell" which would potentially give the chef access to some really nice bonuses far earlier than intended. We did apply what we felt was an appropriate bonus to the masterwork food, however.

If it were 1/week or something that might be an interesting limiter. Or perhaps just remove the fear immunity, either forever or until you reach a certain number of ranks in Profession (chef) or get a certain number of Hit Dice.

[Gildedragon]

If it were 1/week or something that might be an interesting limiter. Or perhaps just remove the fear immunity, either forever or until you reach a certain number of ranks in Profession (chef) or get a certain number of Hit Dice.

Or requiring a high skill check.

On that note: perhaps they can gain their level in Chef as a bonus to their profession (chef) checks?

[Destro_Yersul]

I like the idea of adding Chef level to Profession checks, might use that for something. I also like the idea of being able to get spell effects on food by making really high skill checks. Will have to look into that a bit more, figure out what food-related spells there are.

Speaking of spells, I think Caster Level got asked about? I'm pretty sure the default is that it's equal to your hit dice, and I don't know if there would be any reason to change that.

[Temotei]

Speaking of spells, I think Caster Level got asked about? I'm pretty sure the default is that it's equal to your hit dice, and I don't know if there would be any reason to change that.

I suppose. Here's the relevant rules-text:

For creatures with spell-like abilities, a designated caster level defines how difficult it is to dispel their spell-like effects and to define any level-dependent variables (such as range and duration) the abilities might have. The creature’s caster level never affects which spell-like abilities the creature has; sometimes the given caster level is lower than the level a spellcasting character would need to cast the spell of the same name. If no caster level is specified, the caster level is equal to the creature’s Hit Dice. The saving throw (if any) against a spell-like ability is:

10 + the level of the spell the ability resembles or duplicates + the creature’s Cha modifier.

It's just that even for monsters with spell-like abilities with caster levels equal to their Hit Dice, the caster level is usually still specified. Case in point.

EDIT: This thread might of use.