GitP Prestige Class Contest Chat Thread

[Krimm_Blackleaf]

I managed to resist the temptation of posting a previously made class in the last contest, but this one might be irresistible... I've got soooo many classes that fit into this category that I love.

[ErrantX]

I managed to resist the temptation of posting a previously made class in the last contest, but this one might be irresistible... I've got soooo many classes that fit into this category that I love.

Heh, awesome. I'd be interested in seeing what you come up with. :)

-X

[Bhu]

This gives me a chance to try out something Ive been meaning to do for a while.


And it'll be my first PrC for a horror campaign :D

[Lord_Gareth]

Excellent, shapeshifters! Expect my entry at some point ^_^

[Lord_Gareth]

Alright, my class is up and (mostly) complete. Can I get a PEACH, ya'll, or is that against the rules?

[DracoDei]

You would THINK it was with how little people actually post sometimes... but it certainly isn't for VT's contest, and if it is here, it shouldn't be. P.E.A.C.H. is one of the most basic motivations for these contests... because people are going to have to vote to make it work, they are going to have to consider the relative merits of the entries. If they are going to do that, why not do it a little (or a lot) earlier, and give some feedback? Those more selfish but still honest, might point out flaws to increase peoples of their own work (I wouldn't know...).

[Lord_Gareth]

Well then Draco, can I get some critique? I've got everything up BUT the sample encounter (which will take a bit for me to do - I need to get ahold of my BoED), and I could use some opinions.

[boomwolf]

Gareth, that is some impressive piece of work. but I plan on taking you down.

Won't be easy tough, excellent work as always.

Slight peaching is that "Sanguine Feast" is overpowered, healing equal to damage at will? this makes a dual with any other melee character extremely easy as you might heal for dozens of hp a round. the ability has to be limited somehow. (once per round, announced before attack roll might be good.)

[Lord_Gareth]

Thank'ee! The edit shall be made with GREAT JUSTICE.

I, ah, seem to have misplaced my PhB/DMG. Can someone inform me of the standard wealth for a 10th level character? That's all I need for my sample encounter.

[DracoDei]

Lord Gareth: I was trying to come up with a good idea and was having a pretty hard time of it, and didn't want to be sucked into copy-catting your work so that is why I didn't look at your entry yet... I have now decided to go with my first idea afterall, since I think I can make it a good entry in the end... yes, I really am going to do Animorph!

[DracoDei]

Lord Garrath(First read-through of class itself): The focus on pain seems to dilute the theme of the contest a bit. Also, you need MOAR FLUFF! (by which I mean the stuff that has nothing to do directly with game mechanics) for how your appearance changes (if at all, and I recommend it does) when you take on types and subtypes without changing your stats.

[MageSparrowhawk]

I'm in the process of filling out all the additional info....however, I'd like to see what people think of what's there so far.

[dyslexicfaser]

I've got an idea I'll be working on - a homage to the greatest and weirdest optimization build I've ever seen over on the Wizards' CO boards: the Power Rangers.

Now hopefully I can just work out the mechanics.

[ErrantX]

I've got an idea I'll be working on - a homage to the greatest and weirdest optimization build I've ever seen over on the Wizards' CO boards: the Power Rangers.

Now hopefully I can just work out the mechanics.

I was wondering if someone was going to go all the way and try to make a Power Ranger :P

-X

[dyslexicfaser]

I do like the Half-dragon Ascendant, Mage. I would say that a new ability every level plus full spellcasting might be overpowered, but... well, first you have to be a half-dragon, and that's enough of a drawback as it is. The way you did SR and DR did kind of confuse me, though. Racial HD?

By the by, is there a list of MM constructs somewhere? The Power Rangers need a capstone ability... heh.

[Llama231]

Whoa, where did a 9 page thread suddenly sprout out of?

[MageSparrowhawk]

The racial HD that I'm referring to is basically your level in the class, because that's 1) what levels in the class provide, 2) what those abilities tend to be based off of normally (e.g. breath weapon), and 3) it fits flavor-wise.

[MageSparrowhawk]

:bump: for lots of new stuff on mine.

hey, what do ya'll forum-goers (I'm sorry for that phrase) think of the capstone ability? Weak/OP/good?

[Ascension]

I want to enter a class revolving around gradually becoming treelike. It seems like I ought to make it a druid PrC, but I really don't want to make a caster class. I'm thinking something more Bear Warriorish, something with a closer-to-nature feel without actual divine magic. Does that sound like a workable idea?

[ErrantX]

I think it's a great idea.

The theme does not require the character to be a spellcaster. Bear warrior is a great example of a non spellcasting transmutational class.

-X

[boomwolf]

Working hard on my lycan PrC (Silvermoon Hunter. an anti-lycan lycan PrC)

not sure it will be done in time, or be able to beat the existing competition, but I'm planning to give them a fight. with fang and claw as one might say. (doing homebrews while on the army is hard work...not alot of time...)

[ErrantX]

Working hard on my lycan PrC (Silvermoon Hunter. an anti-lycan lycan PrC)

not sure it will be done in time, or be able to beat the existing competition, but I'm planning to give them a fight. with fang and claw as one might say. (doing homebrews while on the army is hard work...not alot of time...)

Well if you have questions or need to ask, obviously, this is a good thread to do it on. You've still got 18 days, friend, lots of time :) Good luck though, that sounds quite cool. I hope to see it.

-X

[boomwolf]

Everyone else got 18 days, but I got a computer only on: 6,7,12,13 and 14 of the month (26,27,28 too but that's too late)

The IDF is sometimes so troublesome...

Questions I am lucky to have none, its just a matter of making it good enough to be deserved to be posted in the competition. (i totally scrapped my first idea that was something completely different because it was simply not good enough.)

Well then, back to work. nearly finished the crunchy parts, only a little remains there. then finishing to write down fluff, and the last thing is the encounter.


BTW-you might want to update the main post of this thread, its out-of-date.

[Mr.Moron]

I put up a very primitive version of my idea. A master blacksmith who can fuse with his weapons & armor for short periods of time. As well as having some other abilties.

It hasn't been checked at all for balance, spelling, grammar or pretty much anything else but the structure of it's abilties. So it could probably use a good once over, or twice over. I tend to overload my classes, so chances are it could use some a good deal of pruning.

[Bhu]

well crap my initial concept isnt panning out so well. I'll need to do another one

[ErrantX]

Just a reminder to everyone, we've got just under two weeks left on the contest, I've seen a few good entries come through and I'm hoping to see a few more at least :)

Hey Krimm, what happened to you putting something in?

Happy Homebrewing!
-X

[boomwolf]

God i hope a sample encounter is not necessary, i don't think I'll make it in time.

I got 3 hours till I have to go to sleep, and when i wake up (6 hours later...) I go back to my base for 2 week, with no internet. and I got tons of other things I need to do until then... (like packing, and eating, and shower and study for my tests. arg!!!)

Well, that's all I managed to do in my short time. what do you think?

[Mr.Moron]

God i hope a sample encounter is not necessary, i don't think I'll make it in time.

I got 3 hours till I have to go to sleep, and when i wake up (6 hours later...) I go back to my base for 2 week, with no internet. and I got tons of other things I need to do until then... (like packing, and eating, and shower and study for my tests. arg!!!)

Well, that's all I managed to do in my short time. what do you think?

Control Shape: Where does this skill come from? I'm not over familiar with were-stuff, but as far as I know it isn't core. If there is an external source for this, it should be cited. If there isn't I don't see where you've defined the skill in the entry.

Willing Transformation: This is more of a flavor bonus than a strict mechanical advantage. Flavor is good, but so are fun abilties. Since this is the entry level and the class gets all good saves it doesn't feel as dead as it might otherwise. Still, this could be paired with something a bit more dynamic.

Lycanhunter Claws: Even as a bonus that applied to all enemies, this would make for a bland class feature. Especially when it's standing on it's own in half the classes levels. This can be replicated or done better with low-level spells, or a magic item. Enhancement bonuses gained in those ways aren't limited to one class of enemies either. This really isn't much of a feature at all, in my opinion.

Track the Beast: This class is very specific and while that's not a bad thing, especially for a prestige class when you specialize you bonuses need to be that much better in your area of specialty. Again, this is something that would be a fairly trivial bonus if it applied against all enemies.

Also, when tracking by scent you can choose to make a wisdom check instead of a survival check ( http://www.d20srd.org/srd/specialAbilities.htm#scent ). How does it interact with those?

Silver Resistance: DR is nice, but unless someone is specifically hunting for you with silver weapons.. it's probably not going to come up. Not much tends to just incidentally have silver weapons on them. So, this makes for a fairly situational ability. Maybe if it tweaked your DR in more likely scenarios a bit more, it'd feel more solid.

Reverse the Curse: This is almost entirely flavor. It offers little in the way of real benefit to the someone taking levels in the class. It feels a bit like a dead level to be honest.

Darkest Hour: The power of this is really hard to evaluate. It scales with HD so, that's nice. However the DC is charisma-based, and this is a bruiser class you probably won't have the best charisma score. It's meaningless against even matches, but if the effect gets off absolutely a game-ender against a group of mooks. I think you're headed in the right with this direction. I'd tone down the severity of the fear effect overall, and give it another even lesser effect against things closer to your own power level.

Right now it's just useless in certain situations, and overwhelmingly powerful in others. I really feel it should be more consitant.



Overall: The class is shaky mechanically, I think. Given their narrow field of application, the features just don't do enough.

Fluff-Wise, it needs more and it needs something to feel different. Maybe it's just me but I think "Were_____" vs Were____" just feels a bit too predictable for a transformation theme. That doesn't mean it can't work, but it needs something extra to really make it sparkle.



On a similar note to all this:
Anyone have any thoughts on the class I submitted. I still need to tweak it of course (do a balance pass, fix that one really wordy ability) but someones quick thoughts would be nice.

[boomwolf]

Control Shape is part of the lycanthrope entry in the MM. it SHOULD be known to everyone using a lycanthrope character.

"Willing Transformation" might sound fluff-only, but when the DM plays right, alignment change matter. suddenly turning from lawful-good to chaotic-evil results in a massive behavioral change. lycanthropes are normally blood-thirsty monsters, and the entire class relies on not having to be one in order to change. so even tough mostly fluff, its necessary.

The fear ability of "Darkest Hour", As I assume you didn't notice, is a replica of the dragon's "Frightful Presence"

In many things you said "its too narrow", but keep in mind many "Anti-X" PrCs are out there at wizard's books, and they all have situational abilities. this class WAS designed to be a specialized PrC, and not a "everybody does it" PrC. however some of your points are well made, so I tuned him up a little against all favored enemies, giving a bigger range of effectiveness, while keeping lycanthropes the main enemy. (you CAN have more then 1 after all.)


Now for your class, I fear it suffers from over-complexity. it took me awhile to figure out what is going on there and how things work, and when I did then I realized many things there are way over the edge in power level. Tough Body gives you +7 Con at level 20, Resistant Body gives you SR 32 at that point and Durable Body supply a DR 10/-, these three without everything else he gets make him quite powerful, but add in some attack-improving abilities, the ability to make magic items at rapid speed without wasting feats or knowing spells, AND being immune to pretty much every type-based hostile spell, and you turn every fighter who was willing to waste some skill points and a single feat (not like a fighter is missing any) into a highly-flexible, item-maker, nigh-unkillable monster construct something, even if for a short time. (ho wait, only 1 minute recharge. so you just gotta hide for 10 rounds before you start the rampage all over again.

Its not that its BAD, its jest overpowered, many abilities are strong when you first acquire them and the then scale up nearly automatically as you level up. and every time you face a challenge you cannot defeat you can make up the perfect-for-the-situation magic item out of thin air if you are willing to give up some xp.

Now, if I were a munchkin, I would have taken a single level in the class at level 6 and start forging myself epic magic items, then easily beating should-be-hard opponents, and sticking to easy fights, get tons of xp, and make even more far-over-my-level magic items until I got the absolute best magic items possible, and THEN start to level myself up, quite likely in this very class for the absorbed bonuses you get at high levels from the transformation.

On another note, your class is fluff-less. you gotta add some.

[Mr.Moron]

Control Shape is part of the lycanthrope entry in the MM. it SHOULD be known to everyone using a lycanthrope character.

That's good. As I said, I'm not overly familiar with Lycanthropy rules.

"Willing Transformation" might sound fluff-only, but when the DM plays right, alignment change matter. suddenly turning from lawful-good to chaotic-evil results in a massive behavioral change. lycanthropes are normally blood-thirsty monsters, and the entire class relies on not having to be one in order to change. so even tough mostly fluff, its necessary.

That's nice. But it could be paired paired with something else. After all if you were played someone already in-line with your lycan alignment it does nothing.

The fear ability of "Darkest Hour", As I assume you didn't notice, is a replica of the dragon's "Frightful Presence"

I didn't notice. Even if it is, my feelings on the ability stand. It just doesn't feel quite right. I think a direct port of a dragon ability just might not be the best choice.

In many things you said "its too narrow", but keep in mind many "Anti-X" PrCs are out there at wizard's books, and they all have situational abilities. this class WAS designed to be a specialized PrC, and not a "everybody does it" PrC. however some of your points are well made, so I tuned him up a little against all favored enemies, giving a bigger range of effectiveness, while keeping lycanthropes the main enemy. (you CAN have more then 1 after all.)

I said that specialization was fine. It's just when you're as specialized as he is, you really need to shine in your area of specialization. He spends 1/2 his levels getting enhancements bonuses to natural attacks. Anyone can get this with low-level spells or magic items, and against everyone. His bonus against lycans needs to be exceptional. Not "Greater Magic Fang".
As written he is marginally better against lycanthrophes. Hes giving up a lot of power in other areas, he needs to turn lycanthrophes into a fine fur-laden slurry.

Now for your class, I fear it suffers from over-complexity.

Noted. I'll look into simplifying the mechanic. What abilties specifically do you feel are hard to use?

it took me awhile to figure out what is going on there and how things work, and when I did then I realized many things there are way over the edge in power level.

Certainly possible, i haven't done my balance pass on the all of the formulas yet. I'll try to tackle each of your cocerns one by one.

Tough Body gives you +7 Con at level 20,

This feels reasonable to me honestly, though I dislike the odd number. I'll find a way to round the formula so it winds up being 6. Bigger bonuses are available for longer periods from other classes. If you have specific thoughts on why a CON bonus of this size is overpowered at 20, I'm certainly open.

Resistant Body gives you SR 32 at that point

Agreed. This is unintended. I meant for the formula to grant ~20-24 SR at level 20. I must have left the +12 in from another version.

Durable Body supply a DR 10/-,

Frankly looking at this, DR 10/- feels a little underwhelming to be honest. At 20 you're going to have a lot of magic being thrown around, and anything (that should be) throwing physical attacks is certainly going to be hitting for big numbers.

but add in some attack-improving abilities

He has some. Most of his Forge-Power abilties are offensive. Battle Arm, Chain Arm & Molten Arm all lend themselves to offense. Maybe it isn't enough, I'm not sure. I had a hard time coming up with offensive abilties that weren't just hit point damage. Hit point damage is as dull as things get, especially on a melee class.

the ability to make magic items at rapid speed without wasting feats or knowing spells

I'll tone down the speed ability, if I get other people feeling that's too good. However, I don't think making items as a non-caster really constitutes any advantage as being a non-caster already constitutes the largest disadvantage in the game.

AND being immune to pretty much every type-based hostile spell,

Hmm. You're right on this, it wasn't really I wanted the ability to go. I'm going to limit it to buffs & friendly spells. It was mostly intended to allow him to be repaired by spells that target objects, and mostly as a matter of fluff. I went about it the wrong way.

and you turn every fighter who was willing to waste some skill points and a single feat (not like a fighter is missing any) into a highly-flexible, item-maker, nigh-unkillable monster construct something, even if for a short time.

Nigh-Unkillable sounds like a bit of an exaggeration to me. Yes, he has access to some nice abilties. But energy damage and things that target his will save aren't really bothered by the classes abilties. The SR is over inflated and turned down.

Thematically though, the class is supposed to have a very burst of power.

(ho wait, only 1 minute recharge. so you just gotta hide for 10 rounds before you start the rampage all over again.

Who gives up 10 rounds in combat? Really? Still, the intention is that it's usable once per encounter. I just didn't want to explictly word it that way since "Encounter" doesn't seem to be a definition used much outside Tome of Battle.

I'll just change it to once per encounter, so as to totally squash the issue.

many abilities are strong when you first acquire them and the then scale up nearly automatically as you level up.

This much is intentional. I think static abilties you "Grow out" of, just plain stink. If the scaling is out of whack, it can certainly be fixed. However, the class abilties are supposed to grow with you, so they remain relevant.

and every time you face a challenge you cannot defeat you can make up the perfect-for-the-situation magic item out of thin air if you are willing to give up some xp.

Again, you're only supposed to be able to make Armor, Weapons (with DMs permission, a limited number of armor-like weapons). He can't use it to pop out staves, potions, gloves, rings. I'll clarify the limits, and again if someone else agrees on the speed issue dump that.

Now, if I were a munchkin, I would have taken a single level in the class at level 6 and start forging myself epic magic items

You can't do that. The enhancement bonus of items you work on is limited by your class level (not your character level, I'll make sure that's clear). With 1 level in the class, you can only make +1 weapons and armor. I'll clarify that at class level 6 you can't break the standard rules on enhancement bonuses/type to get epic items.

It's good you pointed it out. That's kind of stupid abuses that can slip through designs, and have "Unintended Results" as people put it.

, then easily beating should-be-hard opponents, and sticking to easy fights, get tons of xp, and make even more far-over-my-level magic items until I got the absolute best magic items possible, and THEN start to level myself up, quite likely in this very class for the absorbed bonuses you get at high levels from the transformation.

The crafting ambiguities will be fixed to eliminate any potential abuses like this.

On another note, your class is fluff-less. you gotta add some.

I know. The fluff section is still empty. I'm still working on it.