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Lappy9000
2009-04-26, 10:13 PM
Partial credit for Vitriate Animus goes to SilverClawShift (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3098490&postcount=77).


Edificer
http://th05.deviantart.com/fs25/300W/i/2008/108/a/3/The_Light_by_LadyDeddelit.jpg
-Image Property of LadyDeddelit (http://ladydeddelit.deviantart.com/).

There are those who walk the path of healers; mending the weak through mundane and magical means. They act from the good of their hearts, or from the emptiness in their wallets.

There are those who walk the path of clerics; curing the weak and sickened from the divine influence of their deity. They help the pious, and convert the heretical.

Then there are those who walk the path of edificers. Wielding nothing but the pure energies of the lifestream straight from the Plane of Positive Energy, they can heal the hurt, damage the unliving, or drain the very essence from their enemies. Sanctioned great endurance from the lifestream, edificers continue to absorb positive energy until their very bodies illuminate the energies of the lifestream.

Requirements
To qualify to become an edificer, a character must fulfill all the following criteria.
Alignment: Any Non-Evil
Feat: Iron Will
Skills: Heal 8 ranks, Knowledge (the planes) 8 ranks

Table: The Edificer
{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special

1st|
+0|
+2|
+2|
+2|Eye of the Spirits, Vitality +1, Vitiate Serenity

2nd|
+1|
+3|
+3|
+3|Radiant Becoming, Spirit Essence

3nd|
+1|
+3|
+3|
+3|Vitality +2, Vitiate Diligence

4th|
+2|
+4|
+4|
+4|Mending Dominion

5th|
+2|
+4|
+4|
+4|Effuse Energy, Vitiate Brio

6th|
+3|
+5|
+5|
+5|Melioration 1/day, Vitality +3

7th|
+3|
+5|
+5|
+5|Purview of Essence, Vitiate Eupnea

8th|
+4|
+6|
+6|
+6|Melioration 2/day, Revitalizing Dominion

9th|
+4|
+6|
+6|
+6|Vitality +4, Vitiate Animus

10th|
+5|
+7|
+7|
+7|Empyrean Becoming, Melioration 3/day[/table]

Hit Die: d6
Class Skills: The edificer's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Cha), Craft (Int), Diplomacy (Cha), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Knowledge (the planes) (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis).
Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier.

Class Features
All the following are class features of the edificer prestige class.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency: Edificers gain no proficiency with any weapon or armor.

Eye of the Spirits (Su): As a standard action, an edificer use the sacred sight granted to her by the world's energy, determining the condition of creatures near death within a 30 ft. cone. You instantly know whether each creature within the area is dead, fragile (alive and wounded, with 3 or fewer hit points left), fighting off death (alive with 4 or more hit points), undead, or neither alive nor dead (such as a construct).

Eye of the Spirits sees through any spell or ability that allows creatures to feign death.

Province of Vitality (Su): Starting at 1st level, an edificer can project pure positive energy to empower herself or her allies. The benefit of this aura can be swapped between one of three different auras as a Swift action. This aura has a 30-foot radius and lasts as long as the edificer remains conscious or uses a swift action to change the aura's effect. The bonuses given by the aura increase to +2 at 3rd level, +3 at 6th level, and +4 at 9th level.

Illustrious Safeguard: You and allies gain a +1 insight bonus to all saving throws.
Sibylline Vision: You and allies gain a +1 insight bonus to AC.
Ward of Deterrence: You and allies gain a +1 deflection bonus to AC.


Vitiate (Su): Beginning at 1st level, an edificer can shape and refine undiluted positive energy to her purposes, either by flooding others with the energy, or ending their connection with it all together. You can target a single living creature within 30 ft. to alter their connection with positive life force. The target must succeed a Will Save equal to 10 + your edificer level + your Wisdom modifier, or suffer one of the following effects. Unless otherwise stated, the duration of any effect is equal to your edificer level.

Vitiate Serenity: At 1st level, you can interrupt the target's life force, dealing them 1d10 points of damage per every 2 edificer levels (minimum 1d10).
Vitiate Diligence: At 3rd level, you can temporarily decrease the target's energy, making them unfocused and lethargic, giving them a -1 penalty to all saving throws per every 3 edificer levels (minimum 1).
Vitiate Brio: At 5th level, you can temporarily extinguish the target's spark for life, making them move at a decelerated rate. The creature moves at half its normal speed and can take only a single move action or standard action each turn, but not both (nor may it take full-round actions). Additionally, the creature takes a -1 penalty on attack rolls and AC per every 3 edificer levels (minimum 1).
Vitiate Eupnea: At 7th level, you can drain the target of their breath, interrupting their natural breathing process. The affected creature can still continue to breathe by taking a standard action in each round to gasp for breath. If the affected creature attempts to take actions normally (instead of consciously controlling its breathing), it must must make another Will save to consciously overcome the effect. The DC of this save increases by 1 in every consecutive round after the first one that goes by without a breath; the DC drops back to its original value if the creature spends an action to take a breath. If the creature fails their save, it becomes disabled at 0 hit points. In the following round, it drops to -1 hit points and is dying, effectively ending the effects of Vitiate Eupnea.
Vitiate Animus: At 9th level, you temporarily remove the target's natural barriers to positive energy, effectively overloading them as positive energy floods into their body. If used against a living creature at full hit points, they gain Fast Healing 5, but begin to acquire bonus hitpoints above their maximum from both Fast Healing and magical means. If the creature attains twice their normal number of hitpoints, they simply explode in a brilliant flash, curing all creatures within a 30 ft. radius as if they had received a Restoration spell. However, if Vitiate Animus ends before the creature attains twice their normal hit points, they return to full hit points, and are instead stunned for 1d6 rounds.


Radiant Becoming (Su): At 2nd level, an edificer has absorbed tremendous amounts of positive energy, causing her body to glow, shedding bright light in a 20-foot radius (and dim light for an additional 20 feet). This ability can be suppressed for a number of rounds equal to your edificer level as a swift action.

Spirit Essence (Su): Beginning at 2nd level, an edificer can heal wounds (her own or those of others) by touch. Each day she can heal a total number of hit points of damage equal to her edificer level × her Wisdom modifier x two. An edificer may choose to divide her healing among multiple recipients, and she doesn’t have to use it all at once. Using Spirit Essence is a standard action.

Alternatively, an edificer can use any or all of this healing power to deal damage to undead or creatures. Using Spirit Essence in this way requires a successful melee touch attack and doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity. The edificer decides how many of her daily allotment of points to use as damage after successfully touching an undead creature.

Mending Dominion (Su): Upon reaching 4th level, an edificer increases the flow of positive energy through her Province of Vitality, giving any creature currently under one of its effects Fast Healing 2.

Effuse Energy (Su): At 5th level, an edificer can absorb the life energy of others. You can target a number of living creatures equal to half your edificer level. By succeeding a ranged touch attack, this power deals 1d6 points of damage per two edificer levels. This absorbed life energy is used to refuel your Spirit Essence, which cannot hold more hit points than its maximum total.

Melioration (Sp): Beginning at 6th level, an edificer gains some lesser spellcasting prowess, and can cast one of the following spells 1/day as a spell-like ability: Break Enchantment, Heal, Raise Dead. Caster level is equal to edificer level. These spell-like abilities can be used 2 times per day at level 8, and 3 times per day at level 10.

Purview of Essence (Su): At 7th level, an edificer no longer needs to touch a creature to infuse them with the energy from her Spirit Essence. She can now target a single creature within the range of her Province of Vitality. When used to damage undead, she may now make a ranged touch attack instead of a melee touch attack.

Revitalizing Dominion (Su): Upon reaching 8th level, an edificer further increases the flow of positive energy through her Province of Vitality, giving any creature currently under one of its effects Fast Healing 4. Revitalizing Dominion effectively replaces Mending Dominion.

Empyrean Becoming (Su): At 10th level, an edificer's body and soul are completely infused with positive energy. You gain resistance 20 against any attack that deals acid, cold, electricity, fire, or sonic damage by absorbing the damage. When you absorb damage, you can choose to release the energy as a 30-foot radius of positive energy that heals an amount of damage equal to the points of damage you successfully resisted, or merely dissipate the energy.

Changed/Altered Class Features

Entry Requirements: Changed from Wisdom 18+ to Iron Will.

Class Skills changed from +4/level to +2/level.

Province of Vitality: Now only gives defensive buffs.

Effuse Energy moved from 6th to 5th level.

Sibylline (Su): Upon reaching 3rd level, an edificer can see and hear a distant location by looking through the life stream. You don’t need line of sight or line of effect, but the locale must be known—a place familiar to you or an obvious one, such as behind a door, around a corner, or in a grove of trees. Once you have selected the locale, the focus of this sight doesn’t move, but you can rotate it in all directions to view the area as desired. Unlike other scrying powers, this power does not allow psionically or supernaturally enhanced senses to work through it. This ability can be used once per day per 2 edificer levels.

If the chosen locale is magically or psionically dark, you see nothing. If it is naturally pitch black, you can see in a 10-foot radius around the center of the power’s effect or out to the extent of your natural darkvision. The power does not work across planes.

Forced Paroxysm (Su): At 5th level, the energies of the lifestream react violently to those who attack an edificer. Each time a creature strikes you in melee, it takes damage equal to the amount it dealt to you or a number of hit points equal to your edificer level, whichever is less. Powers and abilities the attacker may have such as damage reduction and regeneration do not lessen or change this damage. The damage from Forced Paroxysm has no type, so even if you took fire damage from a creature that has immunity to fire, Forced Paroxysm will damage your attacker.

Icewalker
2009-04-27, 01:16 AM
Very cool, but rather overpowered. That's a massive slew of abilities, and the max bonus on all saves doesn't help, especially with the d6 hp. I think the higher health and saves fit the class very well, so you might want to remove some abilities. Maybe Effuse Energy, and the observational ones?

I'm not the best measure of balance, so I won't be much of a help in fine-tuning it, but I can say this seems quite overpowered at the moment.

Lappy9000
2009-04-27, 09:48 AM
Very cool, but rather overpowered.Thank you! But, yes, I realize it's overpowered.

That's a massive slew of abilities, and the max bonus on all saves doesn't help, especially with the d6 hp. I think the higher health and saves fit the class very well, so you might want to remove some abilities. Maybe Effuse Energy, and the observational ones?The slew of abilities comes from me needing to give a class with an extremely low Base Attack Bonus and a lack of spellcasting something cool to do with their actions.

So the Vitiate abilities definitely need to stay, and Effuse Energy, Eye of the Spirits, and Sibylline would be easier to drop than others. Although, Eye of the Spirits and Sibylline aren't exactly huge bonuses; they're pretty much there to make the edificer a tad more flexible. A drop in skills to 2 + Int /level would also be a minor, yet probably necessary drop in power. That said, I really need a way to weaken them a bit. Suggestions?

When I realized I had so many abilities, I toyed with the idea of turning the edificer into a base class, but my pure hatred of base classes that don't make an archetypical niche for themselves won out.

Icewalker
2009-04-27, 06:56 PM
You could drop Forced Paroxysm. Another option would be to replace Province of Vitality with just the fast healing, instead of the combat bonuses as well.

Also, having a high stat requirement is a very unusual thing for a PrC (also, I believe they are generally odd numbers). Why'd you pick it?

Draken
2009-04-27, 07:06 PM
Well, you could give it more healing abilities and see if you can make a character that makes in-combat healing... Worthwhile.

Edit: That if you go with the "Base class" thing. I kind of failed at quoting here.

Lappy9000
2009-04-27, 08:14 PM
You could drop Forced Paroxysm. Another option would be to replace Province of Vitality with just the fast healing, instead of the combat bonuses as well.The combat bonuses are pretty neglibible, though...

....Hold on. I'm gonna mix a few things up from the original post. Tell me what you think.


Also, having a high stat requirement is a very unusual thing for a PrC (also, I believe they are generally odd numbers). Why'd you pick it? 'Needed another requirement, and since Wisdom is tied to divine spellcasting (and using positive energy in your favor), it seemed like a winner. But, yeah, I forgot about the odd numeral thing. I'll change it to 17 instead.


Well, you could give it more healing abilities and see if you can make a character that makes in-combat healing... Worthwhile.

Edit: That if you go with the "Base class" thing. I kind of failed at quoting here.Yeah...well...it's a good idea, but that path is something of a slippery slope. Making healing effective may very well end up making the class boring for players. I'm not really shooting to fix healers; I'm just trying to make a semi-unique and cool prestige class that fits in with the flavor of my setting. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Icewalker
2009-04-27, 11:14 PM
An alternative possibility for a requirement could be some feats somewhere. Skill Focus (Heal), perhaps, although that seems a bit weak.

Lappy9000
2009-05-04, 09:00 PM
Courtesy of the EnWorld forums, I've made some changes that include:

Entry Requirements Changed to Iron Will.
Province of Vitality now only gives defensive bonuses.
Among other suggestions was to strike out the Fast Healing with an offense buff capability but I'm not sure how I feel about that. Any suggestions for another non-offensive buffs for Province of Vitality? Two different bonus to AC kinda seem like a cop-out.

Lappy9000
2009-05-08, 01:08 AM
Bumping in the hopes of getting some feedback to help balance things :smallsmile: