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Draxar
2011-07-02, 12:57 PM
How would you buff the Dragonmarked Heir to make it a suitable class for Pathfinder?

Off the top of my head, making it an earlier get-into would be one thing, as in 3.5 people would be picking up Lesser Dragonmark the feat at 6th level, or via Dragonmarked Heir at 5th, in Pathfinder the feat would be 5th or 7th, and I'd lean towards 5th, therefore the first level of Dragonmarked Heir should come at 4th.

But what else can you add to it? Caster level progression? Some kind of other class feature progression? Some other kind of bonus for being so tied into your dragonmark?

Any suggestions?

Prime32
2011-07-02, 04:01 PM
Dragonmarks as a whole need some reworking for Pathfinder, to account for the skill mergings.

I've done some stuff on this already. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11958)

Draxar
2011-07-02, 04:25 PM
Dragonmarks as a whole need some reworking for Pathfinder, to account for the skill mergings.

I've done some stuff on this already. (http://brilliantgameologists.com/boards/index.php?topic=11958)

The skill mergings, sure. I'm not so fond of the rest, that you get a whole shebang of abilities for one feat. Sure, it's nice to have those abilities be supernatural/extraordinary abilities, but I think for one feat to give you the ability to use mass heal as a spell like ability half a dozen or more times a day… that's rather overpowered to me.

I think the original feats could use maybe a little sprucing up, and the Heir class a fair bit of sprucing up, but not to the extent you've taken it.

Prime32
2011-07-02, 04:54 PM
The skill mergings, sure. I'm not so fond of the rest, that you get a whole shebang of abilities for one feat. Sure, it's nice to have those abilities be supernatural/extraordinary abilities, but I think for one feat to give you the ability to use mass heal as a spell like ability half a dozen or more times a day… that's rather overpowered to me.

I think the original feats could use maybe a little sprucing up, and the Heir class a fair bit of sprucing up, but not to the extent you've taken it.That "one feat" won't give you mass heal as an SLA until you're lv36. And it has Skill Focus (Heal) as a prereq.

Draxar
2011-07-02, 05:13 PM
That "one feat" won't give you mass heal as an SLA until you're lv36. And it has Skill Focus (Heal) as a prereq.

Ah. At which point, without being a Dragonmarked Heir you lose most of the point of the dragonmarks – getting the powers in question earlier than casters do, and at a higher caster level. With being a dragomarked heir, you get them at exactly the same time as the other casters do, you just have more viability of the higher level ones.

To be frank, I'd rather the minimal adapations we're currently doing to the class (entry at 4th level) than that.

Prime32
2011-07-02, 05:20 PM
Ah. At which point, without being a Dragonmarked Heir you lose most of the point of the dragonmarks – getting the powers in question earlier than casters do, and at a higher caster level.I would have said a lot of the point of dragonmarks is that they let you use items based on their spells. Few people in House Orien actually cast teleport from their marks even if they can, they activate the mark-based teleportation circle at HQ.

You don't usually get them faster than casters (the ones you do get being situational), and you only have a higher caster level if you're a dragonmark heir.


And you still have the option to manifest a more powerful dragonmark here. Sorcerer w/ Dragonmarked Bloodline is basically "Dragonmark Heir: the base class". This is based on the Dragonmarked Sorcerer feat from Dragon which added your mark's spells to your spell list instead of granting them as SLAs.

Draxar
2011-07-02, 05:46 PM
I would have said a lot of the point of dragonmarks is that they let you use items based on their spells. Few people in House Orien actually cast teleport from their marks even if they can, they activate the mark-based teleportation circle at HQ.

I'm not sure I agree with that. Sure, they make a lot of use of items, but I also see them making a fair bit of use of the actual marks.


You don't usually get them faster than casters (the ones you do get being situational), and you only have a higher caster level if you're a dragonmark heir.

A fair number of them you get a couple of levels before the caster would.

And the Dragonmark Heir's do get the powers even earlier, and with (by the end of the class) quite a high increase on caster level.



And you still have the option to manifest a more powerful dragonmark here. Sorcerer w/ Dragonmarked Bloodline is basically "Dragonmark Heir: the base class". This is based on the Dragonmarked Sorcerer feat from Dragon which added your mark's spells to your spell list instead of granting them as SLAs.

It's a way to do it as a base class. But I'd much rather something more adaptable, and something that kept what I see as part of the flavour — that in your focused area, you're better than the normal casters.

To be fair, this is at least partly because of what I specifically want to do with Dragonmark Heir, which is a character who at level four will have Dimension Leap x 3, Dragonmark Prodigy power x 2, Dimension Door x 1, all at Caster level 7, and by level 7 will have Dimension Leap x 4, Expeditious Retreat x 3, Dragonmark Prodigy x 3, Dimension Door x 3, Phantom Steed x 2, Dragonmark Adept power x 2, Teleport x 2, Dragonmark Visionary power x 1, all at caster level 14.

I'm after something that keeps that working, whilst making me at least faintly viable in a fight at those levels.

Draxar
2011-07-03, 05:46 PM
Having thought about it some more, I'm currently leaning towards nicking something from Legacy Champion, and just giving Heirs class feature (i.e. not BAB or saves, but everything else) advancement in one of their previous classes at two or three levels — either 2 and 4, or 2, 3, and 5, the latter being all the levels you don't unlock a new level of Dragonmark.