Complete Adventurer: Patching multiclassing...

[User3]

Just a quick review...

The good:

---Actual feats that spellcasters would take. Some even work off of Concentration. You remember that skill, right? The one we never used.... Some feats allow for concentration on a spell as a move, some allow for a Spring attack spellcasting kind of thing, and others allow for other neato stuff in combat.

---Spells that a fighter could cast out of a Ring of Spell Storing that would help their stchick. Lots of fighting spells.

---A few interesting PrCs like one that gives Skill Mastery and a bonus to a skill with the first level.

---A tactically sound feat that every melee guy should use called Goad that forces an enemy to only attack you with melee, thereby letting the party take advantage of the fact that you are the guy with the massive AC.

---"Additional uses" of Skills that are stealth explanations of how those skills work. For example, it explains how Diplomacy can get you as much as a 10% discount off the price of an item(and not the 100% discount that most people think you can get) and Hide explains how you actually have to stay hidden behind something(with rolls to move from one hiding place to another). A feat is also required to use Listen to find invisible guys.

The bad:
---A bunch of bandaid classes to spot fix stuff like two-handed dagger wielding mage/rogues(who apparently were being played by a enough people to need a whole PrC).
Also in store is a rogue/druid, rogue/psion, and a PrC designed for a Paladin to ease into Blackguard.

---The Shifter was revised as the Master of Many Forms(many forms that are still not as good as Shapechange even after 10 levels, I might add). The Virtuoso, Tempest, and Dread Pirate are back, and they suck.

---More feats to burn off extra Bard music or Wildshape. Why they can't just say "these get used twice a day at most so instead of more uses we are giving you good abilities instead" and be done with it is beyond me.

---A few extremely ill-conveived feats that buff fighters in the bad way(more random bonuses to add up on scratch paper but only activate on odd conditions) and not the good way(tactical options as good as spells of an equal level).

---Feats that blur the line between classes, attack forms, and abilities. For example, there is a feat that lets a mage add his mage level to his monk level for determining Unarmed damage. Its just odd. Its even odder that there is a version for Paladin/monks and bard/monks.

---More feats that make Druids roxxor!

---Wizards now have spell options that allow them to be better fighters than fighters without having to resort to Polymorph. Most are cast as swift actions.

The Undecided:
---Exotic weapons with bizarre powers. For example, the long staff apparently makes you immune to flanking.

---Instead of partial casters, there are a lot of "pay the first level,then get full casting." While that is better than getting screwed over and over again, its not better by much.

---A bunch of replacement feats that let you use X stat for X save, instead of the normal one. Sure, Sorcerers always needed a way to use Cha for Will saves, but I'm not really sure how it works for play balance.

---Some feats are honestly must-haves. There is a feat that lets you reroll failed Reflex saves(one reroll per save, but otherwise no other limit like per day uses or anything). Why would every character not have that?

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Final opinion:

A brave attempt to fix the totally crap multiclassing rules, and a must have for a player of any class.

Ps. I've never seen so many balance changes.

[Wrenfield]

I'll be getting the book next week via mail-order. So far, sounds intriguing.

---A tactically sound feat that every melee guy should use called Goad that forces an enemy to only attack you with melee, thereby letting the party take advantage of the fact that you are the guy with the massive AC.

This has already been printed in the Miniatures Handbook and another sourcebook. It's really excellent, as it keeps mobility combatants from attacking your flimsy HP or AC guy. It also potentially delays a foe's combat actions, as he now has to find the smartest way to get to you - which can be problematic if he has to run a gauntlet of AoO's to get to you. This is a must have feat for Paladins or Hexblades (due to charismas base).

---"Additional uses" of Skills that are stealth explanations of how those skills work. For example, it explains how Diplomacy can get you as much as a 10% discount off the price of an item(and not the 100% discount that most people think you can get)...

I tend to think Bluff is a more appropriate skill for haggling than Diplomacy. That's just bizarre.

---Feats that blur the line between classes, attack forms, and abilities. For example, there is a feat that lets a mage add his mage level to his monk level for determining Unarmed damage. Its just odd. Its even odder that there is a version for Paladin/monks and bard/monks.

The Sorceror Monk PrC in Complete Arcane makes me laugh. It;s totally horrid. Monks live to dump their charismas score. And well ... with Enlightened Fist, they can't. Monks suck - but if they arent gonna suck, they need to stay straight classed as much as possible.

---Instead of partial casters, there are a lot of "pay the first level,then get full casting." While that is better than getting screwed over and over again, its not better by much.

Sad to say, but it appears this game mechanic is gaining favor. Relatively few people whine about the 9/10 spellcaster progression. I personally hate it, but I would look at it more closely if they pile a ton of good crap in that first level. Expect more of this though. Because 5/10 to 8/10 progression classes get scoffed at without even looking.

============

BTW, the Fochlucan Lyrist bites. You can take it at 11th level. After doing something like Bard 7 - Druid 1 - Rogue 2, if you want Sublime Chord stupidity to tack on to your Druid. Or swap Bard and Druid, to emphasize Druid magic. Nonetheless, you royally suck hard for those first 10-14 levels.

[RandomCasualty]

Personally I think the 9/10 caster level progression is the only way to go. Anything more and you've got a must take PrC where you're getting something for notihng, especially as a sorcerer or cleric.

For a druid, 10/10 is ok, so long as you lose wildshape advancement, whcih is really good enough of a drawback.

For anybody else though, I think is 9/10 is necessary. And it does the kind of things we want it to do actually. It lets you give caster PrCs good powers, but does a good job promoting people into going 10 levels of a class instead of disposable classes, because you pay for your power upfront, and once you've already paid the caster level, getting into another caster PrC would be too difficult.

Really partial casting didn't work at all, full casting was unbalanced so 9/10 is the only choice left.

[Username17]

9/10 caster progressions are the suck. The only way to make them worthwhile is if you take all or most of the class - and the class keeps heaping benefits on you after you've already paid up front. It's a power-now-for-power-later schema, and those are bad. Worse, it locks down character concepts because if you multiclass out of a 9/10 PrC you are losing the benefits you already paid for. If you go into another class, you have to pay for the benefits of that class as well, and then you spend the rest of your life having paid for 18 levels of benefits and only actually having 9. The whole concept puts a razor cock right into the only advantage that 3.x multiclassing has - the customizability of character concepts.

Sure, people keeping their full spellcasting abilities and getting anything at all is unbalanced against the baseline - but the baseline is retarded. At no time should gaining a level ever correspond to "your abilties don't get relatively worse against the challenges you are facing." - that's not an ability in any meaningful sense of the term.

---

I'm also going to take issue with some of K's assessment. While I haven't gotten my hands on the book yet, some things immediately pop out at me:

---"Additional uses" of Skills that are stealth explanations of how those skills work. For example, it explains how Diplomacy can get you as much as a 10% discount off the price of an item(and not the 100% discount that most people think you can get) and Hide explains how you actually have to stay hidden behind something(with rolls to move from one hiding place to another). A feat is also required to use Listen to find invisible guys.

You labeled this as "the good". Bullshit. Having Andy Collins come out and nerf skills is not good. It's bad. Really really bad.

Over-the-top uses of large amounts of skills is the only thing that keeps non-casters viable at all at high levels against spellcasters. If you can't beat Misdirection without a huge skill check and a Feat - but you can still beat Misdirection with a single spell that can be cast before combat, why is the Rogue even here?

What blinding need is there to rub our boot down on making 20 ranks of Hide worse than a 2nd level spell? That isn't good, that's cruel and unusual mage-bias. Again. Ed Greenwood never met a spellcaster he didn't like, and obviously neither did these Mod Edit.

-Username17

[Wrenfield]

1105214204[/unixtime]]Personally I think the 9/10 caster level progression is the only way to go. Anything more and you've got a must take PrC where you're getting something for notihng, especially as a sorcerer or cleric.

Complete Arcane and Complete Divine had some nice and balanced full SC progression PrC's. Remember too, your taking a BAB hit in a 10/10 PrC, as well as potentially taking some sub-optimal feats. Which can sometimes hurt in those 1st few levels of acquisition.

For a druid, 10/10 is ok, so long as you lose wildshape advancement, whcih is really good enough of a drawback.

The closest WotC has come to somewhat compelling you to *not* want to straight-class the Druid is the BoED's Lion of Talisid. Which upon further investigation, I would rather stick with straight Druid. That way I can earlier abuse the Exalted/Frozen/Draconic Wildshape feat triumvirate and/or the Rashemi Elemental Summoning feat. All the while not ending up with a BAB +14.

If a Druid PrC ever comes out that is actually "the awesome", it will be because it is so over-the-top broken its not even funny. PRimarily because the Druid is already in that state.

For anybody else though, I think is 9/10 is necessary. And it does the kind of things we want it to do actually. It lets you give caster PrCs good powers, but does a good job promoting people into going 10 levels of a class instead of disposable classes, because you pay for your power upfront, and once you've already paid the caster level, getting into another caster PrC would be too difficult. Really partial casting didn't work at all, full casting was unbalanced so 9/10 is the only choice left.

Full casting is imbalanced? For whom? Clerics, Wizards, Druids, Sorcs, and/or Bards? There are historically, some total crap 10/10 PrC's as well. the 10/10 works just fine, again ... assuming good game design mechanics find the balance.

[Thoth_Amon]

You usually end up trading Familiar advancement or Turning advancement for the abilities you get in a full caster PrC (In addition to the aforementioned feat(s) that are the suck and cross class or sub-optimal skills that you might have to take to meet the requirements.) As some people don't value these that highly, it is a power up in most cases. But you can find a decent balance in a full caster progression.

And don't even get me started on how a 9/10 progression beats the sorcerer with a stick as they came out of the gate on a 19/20 progression as far as the casting is concerned in my book.

TA

[Zherog]

When you're building a character by grabbing a level of this class, two of this class, 5 here, another 8 there, and so on - then, yeah. A 9/10 progression is going to kick you in the balls.

I tend to build my own prestige classes for my PCs when I'm the DM, though. I find out what they want their PC to be, I ask them to give me examples of PrCs in books that they kinda, sorta like but don't quite cut it; then I build. If my pre-reqs are going to be "easy" I might go with a 9/10 caster progression. For example, if the pre-reqs don't include cross class skills, nor sucktastic feats, then I might go with a 9/10 progression, making it one of the "costs" of taking the class. I don't feel bad doing this, because the class is tailor made for the PC - it has abilities they like, it has flavor they like, and therefore they're more likely to take all 10 levels. I'll often frontload that empty caster level with abilities that grow as you advance in the class - so you get a benefit today, and you keep getting a benefit from that empty level as you advance.

It doesn't seem to me to be as big of a kick in the balls when the class is designed for you, with the intention that you'll take all 10 levels. I'm sure others wiill disagree, but it works well enough for me and my players.

[Thoth_Amon]

I would like to see a few of these PrC's Z. If they are not on Nifty, send me a few of them.

TA

[Maj]

I tend to build my own prestige classes for my PCs when I'm the DM, though. I find out what they want their PC to be, I ask them to give me examples of PrCs in books that they kinda, sorta like but don't quite cut it; then I build.

Ess does that, too. In fact, it's gotten to be some normal that I don't know that anyone in our gaming group has actually used a standard class out of the books in a few games. My latest character, Cynabar, has her own 20 level class... Because I mean, really... If you're willing to PrC, why bother with the crap required to get there in the first place?

[The_Hanged_Man]

Man, u guys have all sorts of time for your game. Me jealous. We tend to find PrC concepts we like, and just make them work.

* * *

Personally, I think they should ban all caster-PrC's that don't come w/ fulll caster progression. Generally the special abilities aren't all that special compared to just being a stinking Wizard in teh first place. And like Wrenfield wisely writes, how stinking amazing would that Druid PrC need to be for you to even consider forsaking Druid levels? It's pretty pointless to make PrC's that are sucky compared to Core classes b/c the Core classes themselves are so uberpowerful that they destroy the game.

My best guess is that they just trying to provide roleplaying aids w/ mechanics to show you how your core Wizard could play. Templar, for instance - you're core Cleric could be a dedicated protector temples/defender of the faith/etc. Here's a sucky PrC that does that not nearly as well as your Core Cleric, but at least it's a nice concept.

Now, an interesting idea we used in one campaign was that all spellcasters were required to take a PrC w/ a caster level loss. That evened things up a bit. Got me thinking this is WotC's plan for making the average group work w/ the Core rules - put out a bunch of sucky, but oddly attractive PrC's, and hope that casual groups will use them. Bingo! Less powerful casters, and the casual campaign is saved . . .

[RandomCasualty]

1105228253[/unixtime]]Complete Arcane and Complete Divine had some nice and balanced full SC progression PrC's. Remember too, your taking a BAB hit in a 10/10 PrC, as well as potentially taking some sub-optimal feats. Which can sometimes hurt in those 1st few levels of acquisition.

I don't know, for the most part, whenever there's a class with full wizard casting, it's usually a must take for a wizard, unless it totally sucks, as for the sorcerer, anything is a must take for him, since he gets nothing for his levels in the first place.

A sorcerer will take pretty much any PrC you give him with 10/10 because anything is better than worst hit dice, worst saves and worst BaB. Wizards are pretty much the same way. While it's possible that the class abilities could be worse than 2 metamagic feats, it's highly unlikely.

Clerics have a few things to lose, namely BaB and Hit dice. It'd be ok I suppose to have a cleric PrC with 10/10 casting and sacrifice hit dice or BaB. Druids actually have a lot to lose... but they need a nerf anyway.

Straight wizard or cleric is a damn powerful character without PrCs. I mean you can just have either of those classes and single class it all the way, and still be a fine workable character. When you create a 10/10 progression PrC, you are very well creating a PrC that is increasing the power of those classes, which I really don't think is a good idea.

Casters already can dominate the game, why are we making them more powerful?

Basically PrCs for casters should be a meaningful trade of abilities. 1 level of casting for 10 levels worth of PrC abilities. And I think that's worth it.

PrCs really need some standards of some kind.

[Sir Neil]

Ed Greenwood never met a spellcaster he didn't like, and obviously neither did these Mod Edit.

I really wish I'd seen this thread before the edit. I'll bet it was a good line.

[Count Arioch the 28th]

I have aquired a copy of of CV, and I have one thing to say:

Complete Adventurer is very much appropriate for the sequel to Song and Silence, in the fact that they both suck more than anything which has ever sucked before. (Yes, it did it twice, don't correct me.)

Dread Pirate is still inferior that just being a straight bard. 'Nuff said. That applies to most of the PrCs in the book.

Now, I'm come to expect having to salvage PrCs for use in my campaign, but none of these PrCs are particularly unique, or fill a niche that needs to be filled, or even stand out after having read them.

I can say that in my opinion, this book is the worst the Complete series has to offer.

[Username17]

Yeah, the PrCs are underwhelming:

Animal Lord: Suck! You get more Wild Empathy by staying Ranger/Druid.

Beast Master: Suck! It's not even a net bonus to your animal army over being a straight Druid.

Blood Hound: [b[Suck![/b] It's a class that is entirely based around tracking down favored enemies that you know about before hand, and you get bigger bonuses just being a Ranger. It's casual disregard of the normal initiative rules is charming, but not enough to save the class.

Daggerspell Mage: Suck! It's a class that requires arcane spellcasting and sneak attack, and doesn't advance both at full value. The Arcane Trickster is bad, these fools are worse. The ability to hold two charges is open to everyone without giving up 2+ levels of spellcasting. Just take Spell Flower from SS if you really care. But you don't, because Spellflower is crappy even if you are a Marilith.

Daggerspell Shaper: Abusable! It's a class that is explicitly for adding equipment to druidic wildshape. It opens many cheese doors and closes many others. It doesn't quite have full Wildshape progression, but in some ways has a better one. It makes you lose one spellcaster level. All in all, this is a class noone will take. But it will generate many cheese builds that are different from the normal kind because it has a separate inheritence structure all to its own. I like the fact that the second level ability allows you to transform into a hawk and penetrate DR/Epic.

Dread Pirate: Suck! You get Skill Focus: Intimidate. As a class feature. By level 3 you also have Skill Focus: Profession: Sailor. I'm not kidding.

Dungeon Delver: Suck! I you were a Deep Halfling Rogue, you'd just take more levels of Rogue. Getting Improved Evasion and Skill Mastery by level 11 is not worth giving up 4 levels of Sneak Attack. The higher level abilities aren't even worth considering.

Exemplar: Suck! It grants named bonuses to skills. They don't even stack with having a Bard around. You have to be 11th level to even take the class. Arrgh!

Fochluchan Lyricist: Suck! Like all Mystic Theurges, this one is also somewhat abusable (in addition to being total ass). In this case, by being a Druid who took a level of Sublime Chord. But it's too much work and doesn't get you enough to be worth it.

Ghost Faced Killer: Suck! Like being a Rogue, only you trade your ass-whupping for one round of using a Ring of Blink.

Highland Stalker: Suck! in 10 levels you get no abiliities. Your stupid Skirmish ability continues to advance, now that you have a BAB of +6 or more and don't care.

Maester: SUCK! Sure, as a Wizard, I'll happily spend a caster level for a bonus Item Creation Feat after I already used one of my bonus feats to get one. Not!

Master of Many Forms: Suck! It's the Shifter... only without the payoff of eventually getting to have a cut-rate shapeshift two levels early. You get special qualities at level 7 (which is in fact, level 12), but so what? This spell is 10 pounds of suck in a five pound bag.

Nightsong Enforcer: Suck! You get some abilities that are inferior to special Rogue Abilities, and your Sneak Attack grows slow. You can excuse exactly 4 levels in a Rogue build as this keeps your Sneak Attack rougly constant and gives you a total of +1 BAB. But in all, it's not worth the hassle of explaining what it does.

Nightsong Infiltrator: Suck! Instead of Sneak Attack, you get the ability to count as if you had 5 ranks in Balance. At character level 9.

Ollam: Suck! It's almost as good as multiclassing into Bard from Cleric at level 8.

Shadowbane Inquisitor: Suck! It's almost as good as continuing to multiclass your Paladin/Rogue as a Paladin/Rogue.

Shadowbane Stalker: Suck! It's like a MyTh for Cleric/Rogues. Only it isn't even that good because you don't get full progression in either. There's nothing you can do to make this good. Even some really excellent art can't save this class.

Shadowmind: Suck! I don't psionics. But even I can tell that there is no way in hell that you'd be willing to take time off from gaining Manifester Levels to pick up Sneak Attack. Since there really isn't any other point to this class, I can see that it is the suck.

Spymaster: Suck! You don't even gain sneak attack. Or good abilities. It is pretty hilarious that they mixed up Udectable Aura and Magic Aura, (they apparently hide all their magical gear from detection by pretending to have way more magical gear) but that's not enough to save the class from bad art, a terrible burden of lame (your protection from divination is not extensible to your party-mates), and an all-around bad execution.

Streetfighter: Suck! 1.: Damage is bigger than save DCs, so Stand Tough doesn't even work. If it was every damage source it would at least be interesting, but it's not. 2.: Improved Initiative is a +4 unnamed bonus. How they think anyone is going to jump for a chance to get a +3 named bonus in only five class levels is beyond comprehension.

Tempest: Suck! You know? It's everything the old Tempest was in 10 levels, in 5 levels. But that's still bullshit. They should just be ashamed of themselves. Anyone who actually wanted to fight with two weapons would instead just take 5 levels of any class that provided damage bonuses of any kind.

Thief-Acrobat: Suck! Five levels of Rogue that give no levels of Sneak Attack. Dumb.

Vigilante: Suck! It was suck in Lute and Loot, and is still suck.

Virtuoso:Suck! In Lute and Loot, it was kindof OK. It could be used to cheese out some caster builds. Now it can't. Indeed, it can't be used for anything.

Wild Plains Outrider: Actually, this one isn't bad. Paladins should take this. Note that Paladins aren't very good, so slightly improving them isn't a big deal, but as far as abilities for level 7 to 9, this is pretty good.

So, um, yeah. Thumbs down to the PrCs.

-Username17

[User3]

Skills and Feats:

OK, I read the skill expansions/nerfs. The goal seems to be to nerf every skill perceived as being more powerful than Disable Device, and to give minor benefits to any skill weaker than that. At least, that's what I hope they were doing. Mostly the entire section is just a rant about how Diplomacy, Hide, and Tumble have to be toned down.

Do you realize that after all the nerfs to Hide, there are no longer any rules governing noticing people who are simply pressed up against walls or clinging motionlessly to the ceiling? They are not allowed to hide under those circumstances, and there is no other mechanic for determining whether you are spotted or not.

Feats:

Ho boy! There are a lot of stinkers here. I'm talking about feats that are "Crazy-hook-up-action" on the high end. The very first feat gives you Identify once per day if you can make an appraise check DC 10+ Caster Level. It's not even free, like Clerical Identify. And you can't trade it for another 1st level spell.

I'm talking feats that add multiple classes together for the purposes of determining the effective level of unimportant abilities. But there are some gems:

Devoted Inquisitor: If you are a Paladin/Rogue, your smites also Daze people. Dazed people don't get to act for a whole round, so it sort of sets up Killer Combo!!!! from Killer Instinct.

Dual Strike: It's pretty shitty. But on the plus side, the way it's written you can determine whether you critical with the Kukri and determine the effect of the critical with the Pick. In short, you can have what is effectively a 18-20/x4 weapon - if you care.

Expert Tactician: NERF! This feat got a royal royalling.

Extraordinary Spell Aim: It's like Shape Spell but it doesn't add any levels. It is only available to level 12+ Wizards, but it's practically a must-have.

Goad: All Paladins should have this. Note that it makes enemies unable to take attacks of opportunity against your allies. It's been printed before, but not enough can be said about this feat's utility.

Jack of all Trades: Still shit. Still overpowered. There still isn't a limitation of "only real skills". You still get 1/2 a rank of "Knowledge: Shubnigorauth's Safe Combination" which is DC 0 for the only thing you want to do with it.

Leap Attack: The author had a brain fart and thought that 3.5 Power Attack doubled the power attack bonus when used with a 2-handed wapon. It doeesn't. It adds 2 points per point of attack bonus forsaken. So when you triple that, you add +6 damage per point of Power Attack used. When you combine that with a Spirited Charge, that's 18 points of damage per attack reduction.

Open Minded: It gives you 5 skill points when you get it. You lose 5 skill points when it goes away. They don't have to be the same skills. By swapping yourself into and out-of a mindless state, and buying and selling class skills, you can max out several extra skills.

Staggering Strike Oh crap. There's not even a save. I'm normall not one to suggest Spring Attack for Rogues - but this is a pretty good reason.

Savage Grapple: Wild Feats are normally shit. The general format is that you use a Wild Shape for the day to get an ability that you could just have by actually Wildshaping and still have the feat left over. Savage Grapple isn't like that, it instead makes you automatically add sneak attack damage to all grapple damage while wildshaping. This is going into any Daggerspell Shaper build.

BTW, did you notice that the Rogue is already proficient with the Barbed Dagger? Every level 2 Rogue is going to use one if they have Sleight of Hand at all. It's far and away the best light melee weapon.

-Username17

[Sma]

Great !
Thanks Frank

Sma

[Username17]

Items and Crap:

So there's several exotic melee weapons, the only important one is the Barbed Dagger, which makes it so that every Rogue with Sleight of Hand does as much damage with a Dagger as they do with a Longsword. Bring on the TWF! It also has a list of some exotic ranged weapons, and the martial weapons they should be allowed to carry over Weapon Focus style feats from. It does not, however, have any ruls for these exotic weapons, making the section fairly useless.

Alchemical Items These are universally shitty and expensive. I'm talking like 100 bucks gets you a +1 to a skill check for an hour type shitty. As in, you are paying 100 bucks for a potion of Guidance that has to be pre-chosen. They are crap. But Wait! These can all be made with Major Creation. Even the Alchemical Weaponry (that do crazy things like "make a weapon Ghost Touch for 3 rounds"). So really, this entire section is a very long-winded versatility upgrade for Fabrication Mages. As in, now your Fab Mage can also sub in for the Bard and give people +1 Alchemical bonuses to whatever it is that they are doing. You know, in addition to everything else they can do, in case that becomes important.

They have brought back the 10 foot pole! And now some rogues will carry it again. It gives a +2 bonus to Balance Checks. There is actually a lot of crap like that. There are kits that enhance people doing various tasks. There is now a Masterwork Military Saddle, which means that Paladins all get a +1 bonus to their Ride check. And so on and so forth.

Bardic Swag There is a list of special musical instruments, just like in Lute and Loot. In general they are inferior to the L&L versions, making it just another way to kick Bards right in the nuts. Have I mentioned lately how screwed Bards have become in 3.5? This section is just icin on that.

Magic Items:

There is a list of crazy new magic items. Most of them are just crap (first example is Beast Armor, that is just like Wild Armor except that it slows you down and requires you to expend extra Wildshapes to use it). But there are some gems:

Focused Shield Primary benefit is supposed to be immunity to feinting. This is rather meaningless, because 3.5 Feinting is so shitty that I wouldn't wipe myself with it. The actual benefit is a +1 unnamed bonus to your shield bonus in melee. That means that it stacks with Magic Vestment, and essentially means that you can have a +6 shield pre-epic.

Sizing This is important only in that it says that spellcasters who polymorph themselves appreciate this piece of junk, when actually they simply don't care (what with the fact that they rarely use weapons after polymorphing, and turning into a giant grows your equipment anyway). This is interesting primarily in that it proves beyond a doubt that the different authors have no agreement at all what's going on.

Deadly Precision It's +2d6 when you make a sneak attack. It does not require that your opponent take any extra damage from that sneak attack. So it's an absolute must-have.

Bowstaff: You don't really care, but the important thing here is that Magic Weapon + Special Ability that turns it into a Magic Double Weapon costs less than a Double Weapon. That means that all double weapons will now be like Hannah Barbarah cartoons and have the extra blade "pop out" during a transformation sequence. Double weapons are shit, so I am in favor of this stealth rebalancing.

Claws of the Leopard Reverse Engineered: you can get a slotted item that grants Low-Light Vision and Pounce for 8,000 gp.

Armbands of Might It's a +2 unnamed bonus to Trip Checks and Melee Damage rolls, what's not to like?

Badge of Valor: It provides a Morale Bonus that stacks with other Morale Bonuses. It's shit, and oh my goodness is that a cumbesome legacy effect.

Headband of Concious Effort: Let's put it this way: Skills are +1/level. Saves are +1/2levels. Save bonuses cost bonus squared times a thousand. Skill bonuses cost bonus squared times 100. Every Wizard should have one of these bad boys.

Medal of Gallantry: It's a +2 unnamed, unslotted bonus to diplomacy and it's damn near free.

Spool of Endless Rope: This thing is so awesome that I can hardly contain myself. It's like Imovable Rod awesome.

-Username17

[User3]

A few points I disagree with, FranK:

The shifter definitely took a nerfing from 3.0, which is a shame. They also got rid of the other ways to get into the class; you flat-out have to be a druid now. The shifter isn't too bad compared to a straight druid before shapechange, though; if you assume a campaign runs from level 5-15, then Master of Many Forms isn't terrible for a druid.

Ghost-faced Killer is pretty strong for a Chr-based fighter, such as one who dips into Blackguard to get the Chr bonus to saves. Actually, this is the kind of PrC I really like to see; it's better than a fighter (it'd have to be) but it gets some nifty magical abilities too.

The daggerspell mage isn't that bad. I don't have a problem with 9/10 caster PrC's. This one mixes well with the arcane trickster. Yeah, AT is a bit weak at lower levels, but it's not so bad at higher levels, and this provides a reasonable way to only lose 2 caster levels doing an AT build.

The bard/paladin multiclass feat is pointless, because while it lets you multiclass freely between them, you have to have levels in each before you can take it.

Nitpick: The bowstaff says it's a +2 quarterstaff, not a +2/+2 quarterstaff. DM's call as to whether both heads get the bonus.

The headband is really nice, but it's arguable whether or not it's worth trading for a headband of intellect.

And for what it's worth, I liked the new base classes in the beginning.

grey muse

[fbmf]

Deadly Precision It's +2d6 when you make a sneak attack. It does not require that your opponent take any extra damage from that sneak attack. So it's an absolute must-have.

I'm not following you here.

Game On,
fbmf

[User3]

If I'm following, what Frank is saying is that you get the extra Deadly Precision damage even on things that are normally immune to sneak attack damage because of things like being a construct or an undead. That would indeed make Deadly Precision pretty much a must-have for a melee rogue.

--d.

[Username17]

Exactly. Remember, a Golem takes no extra damage from sneak attacks or criticals - but sneak attacks and criticals still happen to them (for zero extra damage). That's why the Mace of Disruption works at all. The Deadly Precision ability grants two extra dice of unnamed, non-sneak attack damage every time you qualify for a sneak attack - not just when you actually inflict sneak attack damage.

It's like how Flaming Burst weapons inflict extra burst damage on Ice Elementals. Only for the Deadly Precision weapons, the triggering condition is "like every damned time you make a melee attack".

--

Grey Muse: Um.... how exactly are you counting the ability to be invisible for one round per day as a "nifty magical ability"? It's one round per day! That has a chance of cancelling someone's Dex to AC for one round, and if you aren't a Rogue, you don't really care. And in any case, having a +4 Initiative bonus has a pretty good chance of doing that as well.

-Username17

[User3]

Any feedback on the new alternate core classes? Spellthief looked potentially strong. probably sucks if you are not facing arcane spellcasters though.

[MrWaeseL]

How is finding out the actual combination with "Knowledge: The king's safe combination" dc 0?

[grey_muse]

Mr. Waesel: The text under the Knowledge skill reads, "With your DM's approval, you can invent new areas of knowledge." I doubt the DM will allow you to create new knowledges on the fly for the express purpose of having a chance to roll knowledge checks.

I like the alternate classes. All of them get trapfinding, so can effectively replace the rogue. There are two new sneak attack-like abiities: sudden strike and skirmish. Sudden strike works like sneak attack but only works when the target is denied Dex (no flanking.)

Skirmish works when you've moved at least 10 feet that round, meaning you can't do a flanking full attack, but you can run around shooting people -- it works when they still have Dex to AC. The downside is that it only goes up at half speed, because it also gives you a bonus to AC on alternate levels. So a 5th level scout (with the skirmish ability) translates to +2d6 skirmish damage and +1 AC when you've moved 10 feet, instead of +3d6 SA when your opponent's denied Dex.

Classes
The ninja gets sudden strike and acrobatics abilities, as well as ki powers. The ki powers (1/2 ninja level + wis mod uses per day) let you do things like gain concealment, go invis or ethereal for 1 round, or strike ethereal creatures, and all are swift actions. At a glance, it's roughly on par with a rogue.

The scout is a kind of ranger/rogue with rogue BAB. They get d8 HD and skirmish. They get some movement abilities and blindsense at higher levels, meaning they're able to move, sneak around, and spot things. They also get an initiative bonus. It's definitely not as strong as a caster, but I really like the feel of the class.

The spellthief is... interesting. Reduced SA progression, and you can lose a die of SA to steal a spell from your target. The maximum level of spell you can steal is that of a sorcerer of your spellthief level (so a 6th level spellthief can steal 3rd level spells.) As you progress in levels you gain the ability to steal spell effects, spell-like abilities, and energy resistance, and can absorb spells cast on them.These guys get their own spell list, too.

The spellthief can also take spells from a willing target with a standard action, and can either cast them on himself or use the spell levels stolen to power his spells. This means no loading him up with fireballs from the sorcerer, but is useful for things like Shapechange. The write-up takes a full 5 pages, of which about 3.5 is mechanics. It's a bit complex, but a neat idea. I'd have to play one to see how they worked.

Frank: Well, we're probably using different bases for comparison; I imagine you're comparing it to a primary caster of the same level, while I'm comparing it to a fighter or rogue.

It's not just one round a day; it's one round per use as a free action, with more uses per day as you go up levels. A +4 init does give you a good chance of getting an attack at your opponent with no Dex to AC (unless they have Combat Reflexes) but if you have that and a free invis power, then you can get extra attacks with them denied their Dex. But that's not all.

The Ghost-faced Killer gets sneak attack damage, an invis/ethereal ability that's a free action, and a fear-based death effect. That's not a bad set of abilities for a fighter PrC, IMO. The ethereal ability lets you escape a grapple with an impossible opponent, and that death attack is just gravy for a high-Chr fighter.

grey muse

[Neeek]

1105814698[/unixtime]]
Bardic Swag There is a list of special musical instruments, just like in Lute and Loot. In general they are inferior to the L&L versions, making it just another way to kick Bards right in the nuts. Have I mentioned lately how screwed Bards have become in 3.5? This section is just icin on that.

Doesn't there come a point where making Bards suck more is just redundant?