This is the longest chapter so far, so it's suiting that I took the longest break. Sorry for the wait, Prak.
Chapter 5: Heroes and Antiheroes
This is the one where we get to all of the classes and feats. Also spells and magic items. Basically, it's the one chapter that the players will care about.
Archivist
"Stay a while and listen."
This is sort of the Deckard Cain class, or the cleric that casts more like a wizard. Now, despite it's weird-ass dual stat dependency for casting, this is one of the five classes to originally get ranked in JaronK's tier system at the top. Looking at it, the only reason I could possibly see why is cuz they get all teh spellz!!1! Other than that, they seem to be strictly behind the cleric in almost every way. I mean, warlocks were supposed to be able to get all teh spellz!!1! too, but everyone knows they suck.
So, what's this guy do?
You get a poor BAB advancement, good Fort and Will, and d6 Hit Dice. So, you're already two points behind the cleric on the chassis alone. Now, you get four skill points per level, and you're going to want a high Int score, so you're going to get more skills than a cleric. You get access to all Knowledge skills, which matters for some of your Dark Knowledge abilities you get. It's also nice for Knowledge Devotion, which wasn't yet published. You get simple weapon proficiency, and can use light and medium armor, but not shields. So, apart from skills, you're completely behind the cleric.
You get slightly more spells per day than a wizard (or a cleric plus their domain spell), so
that's good. You have to cast off of a prayer book (which follows almost all the same rules as a spell book), so that's bad. You get access to all cleric spells when filling the thing up. That's good. You don't get domain spells, so that's bad. I think the part where everyone jizzed their pants is that when you copy from scrolls and texts to add spells, you can add any
divine spell. Now, that's pretty good; however, your highest level spell and spell DCs are based off Int, but your bonus spells come from Wis. That's bad.
Sorry Frank and AH; I'm stealing your meme.
So, you're potentially drawing from a list more diverse than a cleric with two domains, but the cleric has a chance to pick any one random ass obscure spell they want within 24 hours, whereas the archivist needs to have it in his book. You could abuse some spell-level shenanigans where you get some Paladin spells that are only levels 1-4 and learn them at a reduced level or something. There's also cherry picking off of some weird lists to get stuff that a cleric never could. It pretty much involves book delving your ass off to come up with enough cool tricks to make it feel like it was worth choosing this casting mechanic.
As for actual class features, you actually do get things for 18 of your 20 levels (and the two dead levels are at 16 and 19). Note that none of these are Turn Undead, so that puts you
a lot behind the cleric in terms of abuses of power. There are always divine PrCs that grant the feature, I suppose.
The feature you see the most for this guy is Dark Knowledge. You can use it 3/day at first, and eventually 9/day. It involves making the appropriate Knowledge check against a monster to gain some benefit. Your 1st level ability for this takes a move action and gives allies a +1 - +3 bonus to hit. The 5th level feature grants a +1 - +3 bonus on saves. You can grant +1d6 - +3d6 damage on attacks at level 8. At 11th level, you can dazzle, daze, or stun a creature for one round. 14th level unlocks a +1 - +3 bonus to AC.
Really? That last one seems like they just ran out of ideas, or something. You think it could be rolled into the level 1 ability.
You also get Scribe Scroll, +2 to some Int-based skills, +2 to saves vs enchantment, and two whole bonus feats.
Verdict: The flavor of the class is pretty good. You're going to have enough going on for you that you will be viable at pretty much all levels. If anyone in the party rolled a cleric, you might feel a bit like a sucker.
Dread Necromancer
Pictured above: the battleaxe you will never
use.
I'll admit: I have a bit of a soft spot for this class. The highest level character I ever ran (from 1st level!) was a 17th level Dread Necromancer. Actually, I lied. She was an 8th level Dread Necromancer with 9 levels between two PrCs. Anyone who's ever read Frank & K's Tome of Necromancy, and anyone who's really looked over the class knows this is an 8-level class.
This class follows the same format as the War Mage and the Beguiler. You get a poor BAB, a good Will save, d6 Hit Dice, light armor proficiency (and the ability to cast in it!), spells-per-day as a sorcerer, and full spontaneous access to your narrowly-themed spell list. Honestly, this was one of my favorite casting rubrics I'd seen come out of 3E. There was a period of time where
any casting class I wrote worked this way.
The spell list itself is fairly narrow, but it's not bad. You get a lot of debuffs and some weird utility. You get some summoning, and a lot of your debuffs are pretty solid. As you gain levels, you get a lot of save-or-dies (of course). There are very few buff spells on this list.
False Life and
Death Ward are the two most notable ones. You get the Planar Binding line of spells... but no Magic Circle Against ___. Sadly, a class built around animating dead makes you wait three levels longer than the cleric to do so.
This class gets some pretty good class features over the first eight levels. You get an at-will touch attack that is about as strong as
Inflict Light Wounds. You're not sturdy enough to
want to be using it, but it's a touch attack, and not bad in a tight spot. You can also use it for at-will healing for undead, and yourself, if you took Tomb Tainted Soul (which
of course you will) from
Libris Mortis. You also get Rebuke Undead. This lets you do a lot of the Cleric's Turn Undead tricks.
2nd level gives you DR 2/nothing-at-this-level-is-going-to-overcome-it. It mixes oddly with your 2d6 Hit Dice. At that level, you're often taking little enough damage that you could become surprisingly tanky for a bit. It scales two points about every four levels. It will lag in effectiveness relative to what you will face as you gain levels. You get a 1/day negative energy nova at level 3. Like your touch attack, you're not ever going to run into the fray to use this.
Level 4 gives you an extra Necromancy spell to add to your list. Getting creative can bolster the versatility of your spell list. All you have initially is from the PHB and this book. You also get +2 on saves against some effects that don't normally affect undead.
At 5th level, you get a fear aura as a free action to make people shaken. The poor editing in this book doesn't actually limit it to one use per round, although a successful save means the creature can't be affected for 24 hours. Still, used as (probably) intended, it's a good free debuff to have. You can give fools who get close to you -2 on their saves, and stack it with other cheap effects to send them running.
Level 6 lets you effect a creature with a disease from a short list 1/day. Most of these are stupid, because you're doing relatively little damage to one or two ability scores. The one that jumps out is mindfire, which does 1d4 Int, and takes out animals quite nicely.
7th level gives you a familiar from a pretty good list. You can be casting Commune once a week (for no XP cost) at 7th level, which I found pretty nice. The ghostly visage familiar is off the fucking hook, with at will saves to paralyze anything you're facing. I took the imp familiar with my PC because I didn't want the DM to punch me.
8th level gives you some solid boosts to the undead creatures you just learned to animate. Also, you get another Necromancy spell to add to your list and another use of your tiny nova.
After this, it's mostly stuff you won't care about. Resistance to negative energy (not bad, but comes up infrequently), light fortification, bestowing a handful of negative levels with your touch attack per day (you could do this four levels ago at range with your spells), Craft Wondrous Item at
19th level (WTF!? The flavor is for your future phylactery), and then you become a lich at 20th level. Now, it's not a bad template to just get for free at 20th level, but there are way better things you could be doing with the 11 levels between when you PrCed out, and this.
Verdict: The spell list lacks a lot of the punch of the core casters (especially at high levels), but it's still a strong and surprisingly versatile class. If you're clever with your undead, you can have a lot of fun with it.
Corrupt Avenger
The first PrC in this book is heavily built around this book's favorite mechanic, because of course it is. The only thing I've seen in this book more is advice for the DM to target the friend and families of the PCs (which doesn't come up in this player-centric chapter). Basically, you're a non-evil fightar-type who's been exposed to too much corruption, and now you're all dark and troubled.
You need to be non-evil, BAB +6, and moderate taint (which is pretty high). For your troubles, you get d12 HD, good BAB, good Fort, 4-level casting, and some class features. Your spell list is mostly creepy spells, buff spells, and some good ones like
Black Tentacles. Of course, you don't get that one until 13th level, so, who cares?
You get a weird mix of things, like armored casting, a ranger-like ability to pick a sworn foe, and "taint suppression". This one makes you just as crazy as anyone else with depravity, but you can hide your physical corruption unless you're in a tainted area. Of course, it doesn't do anything to
lower your level of taint, so you
die become unplayable just as fast as anyone else. Also, on a formatting note: I had to chuckle as I read Detect Sworn Foe, which referenced Sworn Foe. I reread everything above I'd skimmed only to realize that the referenced ability came right afterward. Dicks.
You get some smite stuff, so I guess you're like a creepy ranger/paladin. At 3rd level, you can add +Cha mod to saves, which
explicitly stacks with Divine Grace. That's actually pretty good, in principle, except you're effectively playing a minimum 9th level fightar with some gimmicks, so it's not
that good. You can debuff people by looking super creepy.
There's some stuff for fallen paladins, kind of like what they did with the blackguard. Since you can still be good, you don't
have to use these features.
Verdict: Pretty much what you expect from a martial PrC. You get better stuff than you probably would if you hadn't PrCed, but you're not a caster, and most of your tricks come online many levels too late.
Death Delver
You're a weird pseudo-caster who is fixated on death. You need +2 Will, some skills (8 ranks in Concentration, among others), and you needed to have fallen below 0 HP and lived.
For your troubles, you get a cleric chassis, that shitty 4-level casting so many PrCs give out, and some class features. Your spell list is quite small, and is mostly Necromancy buffs and debuffs. You do get
Animate Dead at 3rd level (read: 10th character level).
You can sense life as
Deathwatch at will as a swift action. You can rebuke undead. You become immune to fear at 2nd level. You can cast
Death Ward 1/day (at character level 8), which eventually goes to 3/day. At least it lasts 1 hour/level. You get the Diehard feat (lol). You can make a fear aura 1/day that acts like the
Fear spell. You auto-succeed at your Fort save when someone does a Coup de Grace on you, but you still take the damage as normal, so that sucks. You can grant you and your allies +4 on Will saves, pretty much all the time.
At 10th level, you actually get 9 lives. So, you have to track lives on your character sheet, and when you die, you lose one.
Ha! I just glanced at one of the sample NPCs: Monk 5/Death Delver 7. They made a typo when they printed CR 12. This guy could probably play, as-printed, in a 7th level game without pissing any other players off. There's also an actual typo there where they say he has "7 lives left" on his ability to auto-save on CdGs. Wat? They mixed up Cheat Death and Nine Lives, I guess.
Verdict: You're a
really shitty cleric with a handful of barely level appropriate abilities, a nice nearly-continuous Will save boost to you and your friends, and you're harder to kill. Of course, an
actual cleric would be hard to kill by virtue of being a level-appropriate PC, so, there's that.
Dread Witch
This is the class Prak first mentioned, when wanting me to post this chapter. It's a five-level caster PrC that doesn't advance spellcasting at 1st level. When I first saw that, it pretty much auto-filtered it for me. Still, I remember looking at this thing from several different angles to figure out if I could make it worth it.
It's got a wizard chassis, requires a base Will save of +4, 3 ranks in Knowledge(Arcana), the ability to cast
Cause Fear and
Scare, and you have to have failed a save against a [fear] effect. So, this is one of those rare PrCs that you can qualify for before 5th level. It's only 4th level, but still.
So, at 1st level, you get no spellcasting, but you get Master of Terror and Unnatural Will. That first ability adds 1 to the DC of [fear] spells (that stacks with Spell Focus). You also add
Band and
Doom to your arcane spell list as
2nd level spells (ugh, they're not that good). Also, you add +2 to Intimidate
per class level (this might be cheesable, if you have a good use for that skill). The second ability gives you the Unnatural Will feat from later in this chapter. This lets you add your Cha mod to all saves against [fear] effects.
Okay, so far, you're definitely taking on an effectiveness debt by taking one level of this class. Wizard 5 is
way better than Wizard 4/Dreat Witch 1. It's almost like they timed the entry of this class to make you not get 3rd level spells just to fuck with you.
Level 2, you get Absorb Fear. You get +1 to +3 to caster level depending on if you are exposed to an effect that could make you shaken, frightened, or panicked. Of course, failing your save on the last two means you won't be casting shit, but you don't have to actually
be affected by the condition to get the bonus. Alternately, you can forgo the bonuses to cast a single extra spell without using up a slot. This spell will be 0 to 2nd level based on the severity of the effect. You have a number of rounds to use this spell equal to your Cha mod. It's cute, but I don't see it coming up often, and it's not a super big bonus. If you were immune to fear, maybe you could try to drop AoE [fear] spells with yourself inside, but meh.
At 3rd level, you can add the [fear] descriptor to any spell you cast with a visual manifestation 1/day. This makes people shaken 1d4 rounds. You can do this 2/day at level 5. It's a fairly low-level effect for me to get excited about.
Level 4 lets you to delay fear effects by up to a number of minutes equal to your Cha mod. You can also do this to yourself (while taking advantage of Absorb Fear). You also get another +1 bonus to your save DCs for [fear] spells, you can affect creatures normally immune to fear (unless they're 4 levels higher).
At 5th level you get Horrific Aura, which lets you radiate an aura of fear. Creatures with 6 or less HD are shaken if they fail a save. You can make a touch attack Cha mod/day that makes someone panicked for 1d4+1 rounds (Will save makes them shaken 1 round). This works on creatures above 6 HD.
You also get Reflective Fear. If you make a save against a [fear] effect, the effect is immediately redirected to the source. You still can use Absorb Fear. If the source fails their save, any of the original target who failed their save get a second save to shake the effects.
Verdict: Honestly, I still can't see why you'd dump one caster level on this class. I could see it being a pretty good class if it were 5/5 casting, but it's still niche enough that not every wizard is going to take it.
Fiend-Blooded
This is a bad-touched sorcerer PrC. The one thing that jumped out at me in the prereqs is 8 ranks of Knowledge (The Planes), which sorcerers don't get as a class skill. I don't know if this is an oversight (probably), if they
wanted you to wait until 13th level to qualify (probably not, looking at everything else, and it's 10 levels), or if they wanted you to multiclass to get in. Oh well.
This is a 9/10 casting class that give you casting for the first nine levels. You get class features every level, too. They're mostly small bonuses to things like AC, ability scores, and saves vs poison. Also, you get small amounts of energy resistance. Your familiar becomes fiendish right at level 1. You get a few extra spells known. You can make a "smiting spell" once or twice per day that does some extra damage if it already dealt damage.
At 10th level, in lieu of a caster level, you get +1 Dex, Con, and Int (on top of an earlier +1), +2 Str, poison immunity, and DR 10/magic. Out of all of that, the DR is kinda neat, but damn, a
caster level.
Verdict: Assuming the DM modifies the Knowledge (the Planes) prereq, all you need to get in is 8 ranks in some skills you'd probably already have, the ability to cast 2nd level spells, and two shitty feats. Also, you can't be good. The two feats is the hardest part to swallow, but if you do, you get nothing but freebies for nine levels. They aren't
good freebies, so I'd probably just keep the two feats and move on with my life.
Purifier of the Hallowed Doctrine
This is another class based completely off of the taint mechanic. You're kind of like an anti-taint cleric, but you get a 1/2 caster level advancement over the next ten levels. Lets take a look and see if the sweet class features are worth the loss of five caster levels. I think we all know the answer before continuing seeing as how this book's been out for 11 years and no one remembers this class exists.
You get a cleric chassis, you need some easy skills, and the Pure Soul feat, that makes you immune to taint. If the DM ran the taint rules the way this book faps to them, this might be a stupidly overpowered feat. If not, this whole class is a waste of space.
At first level you stack levels with cleric/paladin for Turn Undead, you can use
Detect Taint at will, and you radiate an aura of purity that makes you easy to spot by tainted creatures. Your spellcasting advances on odd levels, but you're still not going to dip one level into this class for those features.
You get Lay on Hands (just as lame as it's always been), Smite Taint x/day (heh), and some save bonuses to allies against taint. At 6th level (read: 11th character level), you can start removing tiny amounts of taint with a class feature, fueled by Turn Undead.
At 7th level, your "offensive spells" (this is not defined) cast against tainted targets are maximized. This is only 3/day, though. At 8th level, you can make an aura that blocks out creatures with even 1 point of taint.
And... that's it. The rest is just improvements of abilities you already had. You don't get a caster level at level 10; just your allies get an extra +2 on saves vs taint, and you can heal 3 points of taint per Turn Undead attempt instead of 2. Goodie!
Verdict: Yeah, fuck this class. If your DM runs the most tainted of taint-heavy campaigns, just take the Pure Soul feat and play a full cleric. You'll be way better at removing taint and murder hoboing in general.
Tainted Scholar
The last PrC, and also a taint-based one. For anyone who remembers
the version of this from Unearthed Archana, it was an RNG-breaking class that let you set DCs based on something that in no way was bound to the d20 scale that saves are based off of. Also, it grants every feature you care about at level 1. It's so fucking weird. But that's not
this class. This class, I'm sure, is way better. Lets find out!
The prereqs are easy for a 5th level caster, save that you need moderate taint. Also, it's open to warlocks, explicitly.
It's still a full-casting PrC that grants the same four abilities right at 1st level, but you get extra stuff, as well.
You can do 1 point of damage to yourself to raise the CL of your spell by 1 and get rid of any <1gp material components.
There's a weird ability there where you have to make a Will save (based on your depravity score, which is not in any way tied to the d20 RNG) or be forced to take another level in this PrC. The save is doable if you're at the low end of moderate depravity, but if not, you're not getting out of this class.
Well, it looks like this class
also uses your taint score for casting. Depravity determines your spell levels available, and corruption determines the save DC. Any time you cast a spell, you must make a save or gain 1 depravity. All of your arcane spells are [evil]. Depravity scores are weird in this system, and are tied to your Wis score. Getting a higher Wis means you can have a higher score relative to the severity of the depravity (mild, moderate, severe). Same for Con and corruption. For example, the three ranges for a Wis of 10 is 1-5, 6-17, and 18-41 (you become unplayable at 42+). If you have a Wis of 18, the ranges are instead 1-9, 10-29, 30-69. These numbers are the same for corruption.
So, if you have the bare minimum of moderate corruption with a Con of 10, your spell DCs are 10 + spell level + 3 (1/2 your corruption score). If you have the minimum for a Con of 18, you have a DC of 10 + spell level + 5. If you're at the
maximum for moderate corruption (with an 18 Con), you're looking at a save DC of 10 + spell level +
14. And that's before getting into severe taint. You can have an 18 Con and be hanging out with corruption 10 points below your "unplayable" threshold throwing around DCs of 10 + spell level +
+30. This is in no way based on or limited by
character level.
They're not much use after this point.
Well, it looks like this PrC broke the RNG at level 1, too. Of course, the DCs come from corruption, but casting increases
depravity. Still, you can bet your ass that anyone who takes this PrC will spend all of their downtime hanging out at spooky locations, eating food they planted in mass graves, or some shit.
I'm going to skim the other class features because Jesus Christ. You can hide that you have corruption, just like the Corrupted Avenger. You get "secrets", limited by your depravity level. This involves taking Con damage to cast metamagic spells without increasing your spell level (because this class totally needs better class features), adding your depravity score (probably a number between 10 and
50) 1/day to a Wis check or Will save, adding your corruption score 1/day to a Con check or a Fort save, minor DR, a bonus feat, and some other weird shit. You get something like Bardic Lore, but you can add your
depravity score instead of your Int
mod to checks about spooky shit. Fucking fuck, do these guys know how a d20 works?
Damn, you get
Contact Other Plane 1/day. It might increase your depravity, but who cares? You're totally in to that shit. You can detect taint in objects. You can cast
Limited Wish 1/day, but it increases your depravity and corruption (yay!), and hits you with a
Geas/Quest because you have to return the favor.
Verdict: A full-casting PrC that breaks the RNG completely open at 1st level, and the "cost" of your abilities is that you keep breaking the RNG harder. So long as you manage your two taint scores, this class is fucking baller. I suppose, once you've pissed the DM off too many times, he'll just hit you with something that does 5-10 Wis damage, bringing you immediately from moderate taint to "lol, now you're unplayable, no save". So, if you break the RNG
too hard, you're looking at being one save away from "dying".
New Feats
We get lots of new feats. As expected from a WotC published book, most of these are kinda meh or downright bad. I'll do some highlights.
This book brings back [vile] and deformity feats from the
Book of Vile Body Piercings.
This book introduces tainted feats, which you can only take if tainted. It might specifically require taint or depravity. Everyone also gets bonus tainted feats when they hit moderate and severe taint.
As an odd note, there are a handful of feats with prerequisites of
even numbered ability scores. I cannot think of any other book where I have seen that.
Bane Magic: makes all of your damage dealing spells do +2d6 damage to creatures of a specific type. At low level, that's pretty tight if you're fighting a lot of the same type of creature. By mid level or so, you won't notice if you accidentally forget to roll the extra dice.
Corrupt Arcana: If you're a spontaneous caster, you can prepare [corrupt] spells that you find in written form. You still have to pay the corruption cost for casting them.
Deformity (Tall): You gain +5' reach, but you must be medium. So, I guess this doesn't stack with
Enlarge Person.
Dreamtelling: This is one of those three shitty dream feats I mentioned a chapter or two ago. You make a Knowledge (the Planes) roll to interpret a dream. The DM makes up whatever the hell they want, you roll, and it's kind of like
Augury if you roll okay, or
Divination if you roll well. Also, you use Knowledge (the Planes) instead of Survival when in the dreamscape. This ability is likely to come up 0 - 1 times in a standard campaign unless the poor fool who took it bugs their DM repeatedly.
Oneiromancy: Shitty dream feat #2. Requires Dreamtelling and the ability to cast spells. Your spells work normally in a nightmare realm. You have Spell Focus (enchantment and illusion) in the dreamscape. You can deal nonlethal damage with your spells by targeting someone's "dream self" instead of their own self. Doesn't work on certain creature types.
Improved Oneiromancy: Shitty dream feat #3. Requires the first two shitty dream feats. You add several spells to your list of known spells. They're fairly underwhelming unless your DM lurvs dream realms.
Spirit Sense: You can see the sprits of those who have recently died. You can speak with these spirits, if you share a language, but you cannot command them. I'm guessing what they'll say, and if they'll even talk to you is based on circumstance. Could be nice in murder mystery campaigns, and it has some good flavor. It sucks to have to blow a feat on it.
Willing Deformity: A flat-out reprint in this book because it's used as a prereq, but it grants +
3 to Intimidate instead of +2, to better line up with Skill Focus, I guess (Skill Focus used to only grant +2 to one skill in 3.0).
I should note that there are a whole bunch of [tainted] feats in this section that add bonuses to your d20 rolls based on your level of taint. It's typically something like +2/+4/+6 or +3/+6/+9. I'm not complaining about that in and of itself, but why the fuck is the Tainted Scholar PrC adding taint
scores to their DCs when the feats add much more reasonable numbers? I'm hoping these two sections were written by different authors.
Dread Magic
There's a note that casting [evil] spells increases depravity on a failed save. [Corrupt] spells have been brought back from the BoVD.
I'm not going to go through every spell.
Bestow Wound: (1) A rare way for a sorcerer/wizard to heal. Deals 1 damage/round and heals you at the same rate. Lasts 1 round/CL or until you're at full HP.
Call Forth the Beast: (5) Once the target goes to sleep, they awaken in a bloodlust and go out attacking anyone who aggravates or irritates them. Then they pass out with no memory. This could be a nice seed to some weird murder mysteries.
Chain of Sorrow: (7) Deals 2d10 Cha drain (Will half). If the target fails their save, the next time he touches a friend or loved one, they get hit too. This chain continues until someone makes their save. Dag, yo. I guess I lied about not having anything about targeting friends or family in this chapter.
Dream Walk: (4) Only available to people who dumped three feats on the Oneiromancy feats. Works like
Plane Shift, but you go to the dreamscape. I imagine in any sane campaign, the only people who have this are 7th level NPCs who the PCs use to get to the dreamscape for plot reasons.
Familial Geas: (8) Pretty much
Geas but if the target dies before completing the quest, it passes to his closest adult relative.
Harm, Greater: (7) Deals 1d12 damage per CL, max 20d12. Of course, normal
Harm deals a flat 10 damage per CL, max 150, and the average of 1d12 is 6.5. So, when you get this spell at 13th level, you can cast it for an average of 84.5 damage... or you could cast
Harm for 130. Even at max CL, it still only averages
130 damage. What the fuck is this? Did someone just not math that day, or were they planning on it being 2d12 per CL, and someone edited it? I supposed you could do some metamagic to this or something, but fuck.
Greater Harm writer's side job
Harm, Mass: (9) As
Greater Harm, but affects 20-foot radius. First of all, shouldn't it be called
Greater Mass Harm? Secondly, can't I just have this be like
Harm, plus the radius?
Master's Lament: (6) Any damage taken by a caster or their familiar is shared.
Magic Items and Artifacts
Rod of Scantity: It's a
+2 bane light mace that affects tainted creatures. Improves the class features of a Purifier of the Hallowed Doctrine. Even if you got this for free at level 1 of that PrC (and couldn't sell it), it'd still be a shitty PrC.
And... that's it for magic items. The rest are artifacts.
Acerack's Robe: It appears to be a
robe of the archmagi with a matching alignment to the observer. You get a DC 30 Will save to see past the deception if you have "reason to disbelieve". The robe grants all the abilities of the
robe of the archmagi. Plus, 3/day you can cast
finger of death with a range of touch (CL 20). Anyone slain comes back as a zombie. You can control 4 HD per level, separate from any other pool of undead control.
Of course, the robe is a dick, so there's a 10% chance
any time you touch someone, it uses the ability. There's a 5% chance it will use this at range any time some poor sap spends more than 5 minutes within 20 feet of the wearer. You don't control any zombies animated when the robe kills them. The robe can't be removed unless you cast certain powerful spells.
It seems like the winning play here is to just use your 3/day ability first thing in the morning, every day. There's nothing in here about the robe getting extra uses when it decides to be an asshole.
Blade of Valgyr: This is a chaotic evil intelligent
+4 keen unholy wounding bastard sword. It casts
detect magic at will and
darkness 3/day. It is tainted and forces the wearer to save each day. Each day it doesn't take the life of a lawful good being, it bestows a negative level on the wielder. Once you've drawin it in battle, you can't draw another weapon or get rid of this one.
Rod of Cas: This is Scary Moose's rod. It acts like a large
+3 vicious heavy mace that deals bludgeoning and piercing damage (why isn't this just a morningstar?). It acquires the
bane property when you take damage from a creature. The
bane type can shift as you attack different creatures. It cannot be pulled from the wielders hand (and makes him immune to disarm) until the wielder is dead. Actually
cold and dead. If an enemy picks it up, they get hit by
Phantasmal Killer. Any attempt to destroy the rod causes it to instantly teleport to Scary Moose, himself. The person attempting to destroy the rod takes the damage they would have otherwise dealt.
Nothing really to add here. It seems obvious what they're going for with each of these.
And, that wraps up this rules-heavy chapter.
Next up: Creatures of the Night!
