I figured that was the reasoning, though I always found it unconvincing - evil gods exist as well as good. Indicative, I think, of a certain attitude on the part of the designers. But I digress.
Originally Posted by Auranghzeb
Well, it is a folk who steals divine energy from gods and channel negative energy and as they were originally published in the Book of Vile darkness their lore was way darker than in complete divine, they had Malign Spell Focus. as requirement and it is implied in a heavy theological dnd world where gods are material entities, that thy are evil and destructive because they siphon divine energy away from divine casters: "oh that heal spell you prepared? It got intercepted on it's way down". It is mostly lore, but I am one of those who likes alignment and specificity. In a setting where religion matters, Ur-priests would probably be persecuted.
They are really powerful because they progress cleric spells to 9th level through 10 levels, which means 9th level spells at character lvl 15, and grand rebuke undead for DMM shenanigans and also have a version of versatile casting that is pretty strong.
It is by far one of the strongest classes in dnd, regardless of alignment. That being said, Iron will sucks.
That does sound familiar, regarding its strength. Wasn't there some cheese one could do where one could get other divine spellcasting after entering the class? That won't fly with me. Regardless... I am a little wary of such a class, since I've been aiming for mid-optimization at best. Even so, the power of most classes, I think, really boil down to how their played - and the rest of the party. Though... normally, I'd settle for a balanced party, but I have my own reasons for having the PCs be... not the strongest party in the world. Tone of the campaign and all that.
Oh yeah, still need an inane feat requirement... how about Skill Focus: Knowledge (religion)? Doesn't get more inane than that.
Looks good thus far. I will remind you and all players that Flaws are provisionally allowed, though they do require backstory and pairing with a feat also justified by... (checks sheet) ...what did you take as a flaw? I see a bonus feat from that already.Now, after my unwanted 2 cents.
Tck' is progressing. I'm starving for feats and skill points... But I won't complain, with Archivist one one side, thinks are pretty straight forward.
Tck'
N Nezumi Arch 9//PsyRog2/Ard1/SworSg2/Ebon4, Level 9, Init 4, HP / , Speed 40
AC 21, Touch 17, Flat-footed 18, Fort 9, Ref 9, Will 10, Base Attack Bonus 7/2 /41
Rapier +11 (1d6+1, )
Chainshirt (+4 Armor, +3 Dex, +4 Misc)
Abilities Str 12, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 18, Wis 18, Cha 6
Condition None
Abilities Str 12, Dex 16, Con 16, Int 18, Wis 18, Cha 6
Condition NoneBuild seems fine - I'm familiar with the Urban Familiar bit myself. I will note, lore-wise, that a Thri-Kreen knight - or member of Imperial society - would be quite rare. Not impossible - while the Great Houses are largely composed of heriditary families, sometimes one can get adopted, or otherwise given noble status, through great acts in service of a house or the Empire, usually in battle.
Ok, another idea has taken hold within me. Tl;dr: Still interested.
Looking at a LN (Trending towards LE) Urban Ranger 8//RHD 2/Ardent 6 Thri-Kreen Knight, stacking an abundance of urban ACFs on Ranger, including Urban Familiar + Improved Familiar (Complete Warrior - Hippogriff) to be a aerial knight later on [Or now, if you'd allow flexibility on Natural Bond]. Quite enthusiastic about helping reestablish proper civilisation on the fringes, and establishing a high place for himself in it.
A friend of mine and I took a look at it. His conclusion was that it wasn't all that great up until 9-10. and potentially bonkers after that. This is without taking the spell list, and with the caveat that neither of us our experts. But after the class gets the ability to bypass fear immunity, and with high enough DCs, using a standard action to effectively deprive 4 people of their free will and action economy via Frighten is pretty potent. Well, with my changes to the Frightened condition, it's not necessarily going to take a foe out of the fight, but it will be a pretty nasty debuff either way.
Fair enough, let me know if you have any questions, I've already put the class through a 1-20 playtest, so I have a pretty solid idea of it's strengths and weaknesses. I will agree that opponents with strong Will saves are definitely an Achilles heel for the class, not to the point that they invalidate the class but enough that they may need to dig a little deeper into their bag of tricks.
As for the character himself, I was thinking Rogue/Swashbuckler on the other side. My present idea for his backstory is that he's the illegitimate son of a minor noble house who was tossed out as a child when his presence became inconvenient, whereupon he was taken in by his mentor who taught him the basics of his magic.
In any event, I don't see a reason to deny it. As far as power goes I ought to be more concerned with the potential Ur-Priest and the Archivist in the group. I doubt this'll match a Tier 1 in power. And it'll certainly be quite thematic. I will, however, give you advance warning... some things in this campaign are... not the kind of things you should use fear against.
I'll have to say no to both. I hesitate to say that Pathfinder classes are more powerful than 3.5 classes - a PF Fighter ain't going to match up to a 3.5 Sorcerer - but PF classes do get more stuff in general. I actually like that about PF, but... and I'm hesitant to much of any PF content to this campaign.
I know Pathfinder wasn't generally allowed but I just have to ask.
Would you be allowing either The Craven (Spheres of Power)
or
the Goldemist (homebrew)?
I always wanted to play a greedy bastard with a heart of gold and I have a concept swimming around I can't really work on if one of the classes doesn't get an OK.
Yeah, I'm suddenly reminded that that was exactly a houserule I had - gestalt shenanigans can't increase an effective level beyond what it could normally get as a single-track character. I'd mostly intended it for stuff like Swift Hunter, so that Ranger 9/Scout 9 did not count as Ranger 18/Scout 18 for the relevant class features. But I see I'll have to add caster level stuff to that to, at least in cases like the Ur-Priest. And also initiator levels, come to think of it.
Yeah I need more skill points, will probably have to just use Rogue or the like instead of Fighter. Wasn't planning on LA buyoff, no.
Ur-Priest is mostly famous for using it's fast progression to get into Theurge type prestige classes as quick as possible and for stacking caster levels. By itself at 4th level it has a CL of 4, so not that great. Spellthief would actually be a really great class for this gestalt because of how Ur-Priest caster level works but I think it'd be fair to nerf the Ur-Priest caster level to no higher than character level.
(Other casting classes increase the caster level of Ur-Priest, even if they are different kinds of spellcasting).
Pretty sure that's what Path of War is, yes.
I saw someone mention path of war,
I was certain that path of war was just a dreamscarred press attempt at bringing Tome of Battle: Book of the nine swords from 3.5 to pathfinder.
Also, did you have a chance to review those links i dm'd you?
And I have. I don't think I'm going to allow Blacktooth Lycanthrope. Too powerful - and stacking a +5 LA with whatever LA I give Nightchildren (at least +2) and the animal's RHD means you wouldn't have enough levels at start to fit all that. Also, seems like it'd be mutually incompatible with the lycanthrope monster class, which I am allowing.
Much though I love it when my players pick Gnolls to play as, my problem remains that the Flinds are, again, better Gnolls. While base Gnolls certainly leave room for improvement, Flinds might be just a bit too good. I did have a sudden idea whereby Flinds are female gnolls, for gnoll females are stronger and more dominant than males.
Maybe a Flind is just a Gnoll from a far away land? Given that a flindbar is like a very heavy nunchaku, I'd say a far east-flavored location would be appropriate.
Taint rules originated in Oriental Adventures with the Shadowlands. Maybe the beastfolk of the east are constrained to a great desolate landscape tainted by the blood of fiends who were vanquished in a great battle long ago. Over time the gnolls there have taken on fiendish traits, represented mechanically by the half-fiend template or parts thereof. Maybe this gives them a natural resistance to taint, or perhaps allows them to ignore a certain amount of it? The fiend-cursed beastmen stay in their own lands in nomadic clan structures. They occasionally fight each other and any lingering fiends, but are spread thin due to limited food and water. Apart from the occasional raid the nations of the east don't see them as an external threat, but this gives them an entirely different reputation. Outcasts from this land are dangerous wanderers to be avoided, or hired as guides for the curse lands, or for great warriors to test their strength against and brag about later.Is that variant half-fiend doable? A variant based on the Kyoso no Oni in OA would be ideal, given they're the loner hunter versions. It would change the half-fiend ability score bonuses (and possibly include Wis? Its ability scores are Str 18, Dex 15, Con 16, Int 17, Wis 19, Cha 20.), give +2 natural armor, add a burrow speed instead of a fly speed, four claw attacks? tremorsense instead of darkvision? regeneration instead of the poison/energy immunity/resistances? He'd get Outsider skill points for his racial HD, and its class skills would be added for that: Bluff, Concentration, Diplomacy, Hide, Intimidate, Knowledge (Shadowlands?), Listen, Move Silently, Survival.
I'd probably do the spell-like abilities as follows, which is matching spell levels as closely as possible:
Spoiler
Show
HDAbilities
1-2Darkness 3/day
3-4Desecrate
5-6Fear
7-8Suggestion 3/day
9-10Charm Monster
11-12Blasphemy
13-14Telekinesis 3/day, unhallow
15-16Ethereal Jaunt
17-18Summon monster IX (OA Shadowlands Oni only, requires a blood component)
19-20Greater Teleport (self only)I hadn't heard of the Elephant in the Room fix until now, as I don't play Pathfinder, but I assume that link is correct?
This makes Psionic Dodge considerably weaker than Dodge, is there an update for Psionic Dodge, or would Dodge just replace this since it now does the same thing (minus the psionic focus requirement)?
I assume a flindbar would be in the flails weapon group?I do not like this idea. Not the part about females being stronger, but them having different, superior statblocks. But neither do I like the idea of Flinds being a seperate type of gnolls. If anything I'd make them some sort of enhanced gnoll... but I haven't figured out how I want to do that yet.
Lore-wise, funny enough the eastern part of the Empire pretty much is an Oriental Adventures land, and the Empire itself is somewhat loosely based off Rokugan. Which makes the Empire's western parts more like Eastern Europe. I do have my own ideas for the Oni in Oriental Adventures, but it - and taint - really aren't the same, with Oni being unconnected to fiends, at least fiends of the demon and devil variety. In my conception they're closer to aberrations, the result of Taint's corruption of the natural world. The idea of eastern gnolls does strike my fancy though, if only because I like the idea of making a vaguely Mongol-themed gnoll culture. The gnolls I have in the west are somewhat... well, I based their names and language off Magyar/Hungarian.
Speaking of language, I just realized I... eh, this time I'll suppress my instinctive desire to completely redo how languages work in D&D.
Oh yeah, and regarding Elephant in the Room... ugh, should I have just run Pathfinder instead? Anyway, there won't be an update for Psionic Dodge, but I'm also going to go back on my previous statements about the feats therein. Aside from the various compactions, such as Mobility into Dodge, the feats otherwise work the way they do in 3.5. I don't have time right now to go through the list and figure out any cases where the rules might act weirdly, but that'll be my stance from now on. So... Dodge won't quite be the same as Psionic Dodge, but it's still no longer one of if not the weakest feat in 3.5.
That depends on what you're asking for.
@Dusk Raven Dragon Compendium/Dragon Magazine/Dungeon Magazine/2nd Party Dragonlance material (those outside of Dragonlance Campaign Setting which is 1st party) OK with you?
What are your thoughts on multiclassing and dipping if we want to build a character towards a specific specialization/profession/fighting style/archetype?
Also, I currently don't have any such thoughts, and I've certainly done multiclass dips into, say, Fighter before for my gestalt needs. Just don't go crazy with it. I haven't restricted the amount of multiclassing and dips, but I hope I don't have to.
Humans are options. I'm not sure what informed you otherwise, but if it's the fact that humans lack a lore entry in my list of lore paragraphs... I just didn't feel like making one for the most intentionally generic race in D&D.
Questions
Why is Human as a race not an option ?with Aasimar, in PGtF there is the "LESSER" planetouched, may I use that ?
considering Gestalt.. Are you allowing prestige classes on both side of the gestalt and at the same level
IE
Fighter/Druid
Dervish/Planar ShepardAs stated before, lesser planetouched are allowed.
Also as stated elsewhere, two PrCs are not allowed on the same level, in keeping with UA's standard.
I'll look at it when I can, but I always did like the Warlord concept. Marshal... has its perks, but it's not the same.
Definitely sounds interesting.
Would This Warlord Class be acceptable?
Originally Posted by Auranghzeb