Child of Monsters [3.5e Base Class] PEACH

[Torgarn]

Child of Monsters
A child of monsters hunts monsters not for treasure, though it is a nice benefit. He hunts them for far greater reasons, to steal their powers. Depending on the route he takes he may learn their abilities in different ways, but all children of monsters know the same thing. No magical weapon or spell, can meet the pure unadulterated power of a truly powerful monster.

Class Skills
The Child of Monsters' class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Intimidate (Cha) Jump (STR), Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Dungeoneering), Knowledge (Geography) Int, Knowledge (Nature) Knowledge (Religion) INT, Knowledge (The Planes), Listen (Wis), Search (Int) Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis) and Tumble (Dex).
Skills Points at Each Level: 4 + int

Hit Dice: d8



Level
BaB
Fort
Ref
Will
Special


1st
+0
+2
+0
+2
Monster Mitigation, Imitation


2nd
+1
+3
+0
+3
Track, Monstrous Senses


3rd
+2
+3
+1
+3
Monstrous Attack, Size Up


4th
+3
+4
+1
+4
Monstrous Movement


5th
+3
+4
+1
+4
Monstrous Senses


6th
+4
+5
+2
+5
Monstrous Spellcasting


7th
+5
+5
+2
+5
Monstrous Attack,


8th
+6/+1
+6
+2
+6
Monstrous Senses, Monstrous Movement


9th
+6/+1
+6
+3
+6
Monstrous Power


10th
+7/+2
+7
+3
+7



11th
+8/+3
+7
+4
+7
Monstrous Attack, Monstrous Senses


12th
+9/+4
+8
+4
+8
Monstrous Movement


13th
+9/+4
+8
+4
+8
Monstrous Cancellation


14th
+10/+5
+9
+4
+9
Monstrous Senses


15th
+11/+6/+1
+9
+5
+9
Monstrous Attack,


16th
+12/+7/+2
+10|
+5
+10
Monstrous Movement


17th
+12/+7/+2
+10|
+5
+10
Monstrous Senses


18th
+13/+8/+3
+11
+6
+11



19th
+14/+9/+4
+11
+6
+11
Monstrous Attack,


20th
+15/+10/+5
+12
+6
+12
One with Monsters, Monstrous Senses, Monstrous Movement




Weapon Proficiencies: The Child of Monsters is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, as well as light armor and light shields.

Monster Mitigation(Ex)
A Child of Monsters who chooses to forgo his save, in order to intentionally be hit with and subsequently learn a supernatural ability, only takes half damage from such an ability. This ability only reduces the damage of abilities when they are being learned with it's use.

Imitation
A child of monsters can learn a supernatural or extraordinary monster ability if he is affected by it successfully in combat. He can add it to his learned list immediately. The other way for him to learn powers is to dissect a monster whom he has seen using the effect.

A Child of Monsters gains the ability to learn a single monster ability each level. These can be switched out at will if a new ability is learned that would bring them above their maximum limit. An ability that has been replaced can be relearned without penalty, but requires the Child to hunt down a new monster to obtain the ability from. A child of monsters can only learn abilities from monsters who are at a maximum 2 higher in CR than his ECL. If he learns an ability from a monster that progresses, such as a true dragon's breath weapon, rather than fighting a higher level version, he may choose to automatically have his ability progress according to his HD to match with the monster's progression.

A Child of Monsters can use ([level+charisma modifier]/2: minimum number 1) number of learned abilities before he must recharge his abilities. When he has used his allotment of abilities up, he must rest and meditate for at least 5 minutes in order to prepare himself to use new abilities. He can chooses which abilities to use spontaneously, as they are an ingrained part of him.

A Child of Monsters uses his constitution modifier to affect the DC of his Extraordinary abilities and his charisma modifier to affect the DC of his supernatural abilities.

A Child of Monsters may not learn abilities through the attacks of friendly or neutral parties. He must be fighting something which is actively attempting to harm him. Likewise, if he does not observe the creature while alive, he cannot learn it's abilities by dissecting it. As such, summoned monsters, brought by allies to help him learn new abilities, cannot be used for such a purpose.

A Child of Monsters may not learn feats or class abilities through the use of Imitation.

Track
A Child of Monsters must be able to locate creatures to learn abilities from, as such they hone their skills for finding such creatures and gain Track as a Bonus feat at level 2.

Monstrous Senses
The power a Child of Monsters draws from his monster abilities makes him more monster-like as time goes by. At level 2 he gains darkvision if he did not already have it or improved darkvision if he did. Each sense type starts with a range of 30 feet. Every 4 levels after he gains a new sense type from the following list, each with a range of 30 ft. Blindsight, scent, tremorsense. You may take the same ability twice to extend the range by an additional 30 ft.

Monstrous Attack(Ex)
At level 3 and every 4 levels after a Child of Monsters becomes physically more monstrous. He gains a natural attack from the following list.

Claw: This ability may be taken twice, it grants the Child claws or talons that deal appropriate damage for the Child's size. These natural weapons do slashing damage.

Bite: This ability grants the Child fangs that deals appropriate damage for the Child's size. This weapon does piercing damage.

Slam: This ability grants the Child a tail that deals appropriate damage for the Child's size. This weapon does piercing damage

Sting: This ability grants the Child a stinger that deals appropriate damage for the Child's size. This weapon does piercing damage and allows a Child to learn poison use from monsters as one of his abilities, which is delivered through the sting.

Size Up
At level 3 a Child of Monsters has experienced so much of the world and encountered so many monsters that he can instinctively size up a newly discovered monster that he has the appropriate knowledge type for to determine if it knows any abilities that may be useful to him. As long as he meets the minimum knowledge check to know information, he learns of any and all abilities that he may be able to learn from the creature. He adds his class level to the check.

Monstrous Movement(Ex)
Children of Monsters over time, with great observation and large amount of contact with monsters begin to be able to move like them. At level 4 and every 4 levels after, a Child of monsters can choose a new movement type from the following list. They gain this movement type at their base land speed: Burrow, Climb, Fly, Swim. The flight ability may not be selected until at least level 8.

Monstrous Spellcasting
At level 6 a Child of Monsters has enough experience that he knows that some monsters have the power to use Arcane or Divine magic, instinctively, without learning arcane symbols or praying to a deity. If he is struck by such a spell-like ability, he may choose to learn the spell-like ability. He can learn up to one spell of each level from 1st through 9th levels and if he learns a new spell-like ability, he must replace the one that took the level slot of his new one.

A Child of Monsters can use his spell-like abilities 1/day. He must pay any XP cost for any such abilities that mimic spells which have one. He does not have to pay the gold cost or use material components for any spell-likes however.

When he first learns this ability he can learn up to 2nd level spell-like abilities. Every two levels after level 6 he unlocks the next spell-like ability level.

Monstrous Power
At level 9 a Child of Monsters has become so proficient with his powers, that he is able to use them much more effectively. If he has any ability enhancing feats, such as Empower Supernatural Ability, he may have it apply to any of his learned monster abilities. The restriction on times per day will still stay in place.

Monstrous Cancellation
At level 13 a Child of Monsters has become such a master of his abilities that he becomes able to stop abilities similar to them. When a monster uses an ability on the child which he has learned, he may expend a ability use as an immediate action, to cancel out the monsters use of the ability. This only works on activated supernatural and spell-like abilities.

One with Monsters
At level 20 a Child of Monsters has become a monster himself in his own right. For the purposes of effects based on racial type or subtype, a child may choose to use any of the following types in place of his own: Abberation, Dragon, Magical Beast, Ooze, Outsider, Shapechanger or Undead. He may take feats or powers that require any of those types or subtypes.

[Torgarn]

Post for Changelog.

I have no idea how to fix the table. If someone could enlighten me please.

Edit: I figured it out.

I've finished fixing my post, feel free to start dropping feedback if you have it.

[LordErebus12]

Post for Changelog.

I have no idea how to fix the table. If someone could enlighten me please.

Edit: I figured it out.

I've finished fixing my post, feel free to start dropping feedback if you have it.

I like it a lot. Perhaps the secrets of the beholder mages could be unlocked through careful dissection...

[redfeline]

Under monsterous spell casting you have "He must pay and XP cost for any" what goes before the and?

[Torgarn]

Was supposed to be any. Fixed.

[Henry the 57th]

Shouldn't there be something about not being able to just summon monsters and have them attack you?

[Torgarn]

Yes, there probably should. I'll make the change.

[Magikeeper]

@Imitate - I think, as written, the class lets you pick up class abilities. At the very least it lets you pick up (Ex) class abilities, not sure what "Supernatural Monster abilites" mean within the context of RAW.

What is a "memorization period"? I can try to infer this, but it should be explicitly stated.

How does using up abilities work with at-will or continual effects?

What does being "struck by it successfully"? Does this mean only damage-dealing abilities can be copied? I am currently assuming that is not the intent.

Why is there even a limit if the limit is going to be greater than the number of powers you know as long as your Cha is positive? (1/level vs 1/level + 1/2 cha) Did you mean for it to be ((1/level + 1/2 cha)/2)?

That stuff aside, the main issue is that this ability's power level varies wildly depending on what the DM sends against the PC. Some enemies are built around a specific, extremely potent ability that is their 'thing'. Capping it by CR doesn't do much - low level aberrations/undead/etc have some neat stuff. Then again, you could fight unskilled humanoids and not have any abilities to copy at all.

It is an interesting power, but I would advise against having the class be so dependent on it. This could be a 1/3 levels sort of power, with the rest filled with themed abilities that don't rely on the DM giving you have access to the right monsters.

This ability is also somewhat crazy if another party member can use planar binding.

Monsterous Movement - Burrow is quite strong, but the ability seems fine enough atm.

Monsterous Spellcasting - Seems okay. Might not do anything for some PCs, but doesn't seem very abusable at least. Could easily start with levels 1-3rd available IMO. Letting the child have a baseline choice would help the '..aaand there is nothing for me to copy' issue. I recommenced the knowledge domain as it sorta fits, has useful spells, and doesn't have anything obnoxious on it like shapechange.

Monsterous Senses - Seems okay. Could be acquired earlier, and I'm not sure why Scent is a separate ability from this. Also, why would you pick blindsense over blindsight?

Size Up - Based on wording, I'm not sure this technically does anything. I think adding his level to knowledge checks made to identify monsters would be a much clearer way to achieve this sort of effect. Could also be acquired much earlier.

Monsterous Power - Okay.

Monsterous Cancellation - Interesting. Again, what about continuous and/or passive abilities?

One with monsters - It's okay. Level 20 is a rather late for the feat/power benefit and I'm not sure how useful swapping between those types otherwise is.

-----------
So, suggestions:

> Have imitation start at level 3 and increase by 1 every 3 levels thereafter (3/6/9/12/15/18)
> Have Monsterous Spellcasting start at level 3 spells. (6/8/10/12/14/16/18) Let the knowledge domain be the default option.
> Move Monstrous Senses to level 1, combine it with Scent, and let Darkvision or Scent be the starting choice. (1/5/9/13/17) Possibly add Mindsight and Lifesense, as the feats, to the list of options (obviously, mindsight does nothing without telepathy). There are surely other cool senses I am missing.

That leaves levels 2*/7/11/19 as dead levels, although the monstrous movement will likely be far less useful after the first time (10/16). So filling levels 2/7/11/19 with themed abilities that don't depend on an outside source would be nice. Some of the higher level even levels could have abilities that improve the spell likes (maybe let you use the lower-level ones 3/day or even at will).

*I'd also suggest moving track to level one along with the senses ability.

[Erberor]

Hey Torgarn.

PEACHing time...



Class Skills
The Child of Monsters' class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Climb (Str), Knowledge (Arcana), Knowledge (Dungeoneering), Knowledge (Geography) Int, Knowledge (Religion) Knowledge (The Planes), Listen (Wis), Sense Motive (Wis), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis) and Tumble (Dex).
Skills Points at Each Level: 4 + int
What concerns me here is that the list doesn't have a few skills that I imagine to be fairly relevant and iconic of certain monster archetypes, like jump, intimidate, spellcraft (not so important) and maybe stealthy skills. I'm pretty sure search is also very useful for tracking.

Weapon Proficiencies: The Child of Monsters is proficient with all simple and martial weapons, as well as light armor and light shields.


Monster Mitigation(Ex)
A Child of Monsters who chooses to forgo his save, in order to intentionally be hit with and subsequently learn a supernatural ability, only takes half damage from such an ability.

I feel like there really should a clause specifically saying that you are only able to do this in order to learn a new ability, or else there would never be any reason to actually roll a save against abilities that do half damage on a passed save.


Imitation
A child of monsters can learn a supernatural monster ability if he is struck by it successfully in combat. He can add it to his learned and readied lists immediately, if he left a readied ability slot open. The other way for him to learn powers is to dissect a monster whom he has seen using the effect. This method is also his only way of learning extraordinary abilities.

A Child of Monsters gains the ability to learn a single monster ability each level. These can be switched out at will if a new ability is learned that would bring them above their maximum limit. An ability that has been replaced can be relearned without penalty, but requires the Child to hunt down a new monster to obtain the ability from. A child of monsters can only learn abilities from monsters who are at a maximum 2 higher in CR than his ECL. If he learns an ability from a monster that progresses, such as a true dragon's breath weapon, rather than fighting a higher level version, he may choose to automatically have his ability progress according to his HD to match with the monster's progression.

A Child of Monsters can use (level+charisma modifier/2: minimum number 1) number of learned abilities per memorization period. When he has used his allotment of abilities up, he must rest and meditate for at least 5 minutes in order to prepare himself to use new abilities. He can chooses which abilities to use spontaneously, as they are an ingrained part of him.

A Child of Monsters uses his constitution modifier to affect the DC of his Extraordinary abilities and his intelligence modifier to affect the DC of his supernatural abilities.

A Child of Monsters may not learn abilities through the attacks of friendly or neutral parties. He must be fighting something which is actively attempting to harm him. Liekwise, if he does not observe the creature while alive, he cannot learn it's abilities by dissecting it. As such, summoned monsters, brought by allies to help him learn new abilities, cannot be used for such a purpose.

as the key ability of the class, it must be really strong, and I think you've done pretty well here, save for a few things. First: consider putting a skill check on the dissection, scaling depending on the HD of the creature. Second: make it so you can't learn feats taken by a creature, unless they are racial bonus feats. Third: in line with the 2nd thing, make sure that you can't learn class abilities with imitation. That's a bit much. Fourth: I think that the DC of supernatural abilities should be based off charisma, not intelligence, as supernatural abilities are powered by force of will, not depth of thought. That might help a bit with the slight MAD this class might have.


Monstrous Movement(Ex)
Children of Monsters over time, with great observation and large amount of contact with monsters begin to be able to move like them. At level 4 and every 6 levels after, a Child of monsters can choose a new movement type from the following list. They gain this movement type at their base land speed: Burrow, Climb, Swim.
I would personally include the option to improve your base land speed, and eventually offer the possibility of flight. And swimming should come with increased breath capacity/breathing underwater.


Monstrous Senses
The power a Child of Monsters draws from his monster abilites makes him more monsterlike as time goes by. At level 5 he gains darkvision if he did not already have it or improved darkvision if he did. Every 4 levels after he gains a new sense type from the following list, each with a range of 30 ft. Blindsense, blindsight, tremorsense.
typo on abilities (crossed out). Blindsight should definitely have blindsense as a prerequisite, seeing as there is no reason to have blindsense when you can have blindsight.


Monstrous Spellcasting
At level 6 a Child of Monsters has enough experience that he knows that some monsters have the power to use Arcane or Divine magic, instinctively, without learning arcane symbols or praying to a deity. If he is struck by such a spell, he may choose to learn the spell-like ability. He can learn up to one spell of each level from 1st through 9th levels and if he learns a new spell-like ability, he must replace the one that took the level slot of his new one.
Maybe throw in something about learning spells that have different spell levels depending on the caster class. Maybe also something about not being able to learn spells coming from class levels, but that might be too limiting.


A Child of Monsters can use his spell-like abilities 1/day. He must pay any XP cost for any such abilities that mimic spells which have one. He does not have to pay the gold cost or use material components for any spell-likes however.
I don't know about you, but this screams "danger" to me. You probably ought to require paying the material components above a certain value (maybe having to pay for anything above 50gp)


Scent(Ex)
A Child of Monsters becomes more bestial as time goes on and he exposes himself to more of their power. At level 7 he gains the Scent ability.

Size Up
At level 10 a Child of Monsters has experienced so much of the world and encountered so many monsters that he can instinctively size up a ewly discovered monster that he has the appropriate knowledge type for to determine if it knows any abilities that may be useful to him. As long as he meets the minimum knowledge check to know information, he learns of any and all abilites that he may be able to learn from the creature.

Monstrous Power
At level 14 a Child of Monsters has become so proficient with his powers, that he is able to use them much more effectively. If he has any ability enhancing feats, such as Empower Supernatural Ability, he may have it apply to any of his learned monster abilities. The restriction on times per day will still stay in place.

Monstrous Cancellation
At level 18 a Child of Monsters has become such a master of his abilities that he becomes able to stop abilities similar to them. When a monster uses an ability on the child which he has learned and has readied, he may expend a use of said ability as a immediate action, to cancel out the monsters use of the ability.

Everything looks good here, save for a couple typos.


One with Monsters
At level 20 a Child of Monsters has become a monster himself in his own right. For the purposes of effects based on racial type or subtype, a child may choose to use any of the following types in place of his own: Abberation, Dragon, Magical Beast, Ooze, Outsider, Shapechanger or Undead. He may take feats or powers that require any of those types or subtypes.
Feels underwhelming for a capstone, if you ask me. I suggest throwing in other bonuses depending of which type is chosen. Like Ooze and undead granting immunity to crits, Abberation granting bonuses to supernatural abilities, and so on.

Now there are a few things that I think should be added.
1) natural weapons. As a child of monsters, I want to rip things to shreds with claws and teeth, not swords!
2) natural armor. Given light armor, and not much reason (from my perspective) to be DEX heavy, a Child of Monsters' AC is going to be pretty low. Throwing in a method of gaining natural armor would help with that.
3) possibility of higher BAB. Without monstrously high strength, it's going to be hard to go melee and still hit things.
4) possibility of good Ref progression. For the dodgy types.

All in all, it's looking good. It just needs a little bit of patching up in a few places and I think you'll be good to go.

[Torgarn]

@Imitate - I think, as written, the class lets you pick up class abilities. At the very least it lets you pick up (Ex) class abilities, not sure what "Supernatural Monster abilites" mean within the context of RAW.

Abilities with the Su descriptor. I have specifically banned feats and class features per you and Erberor as those were not meant to be allowed.


What is a "memorization period"? I can try to infer this, but it should be explicitly stated.

Part of an older version of the class from before I made it spontaneous.


How does using up abilities work with at-will or continual effects?

At-wills are used once then done, I till need to work on something for continuous abilities.


What does being "struck by it successfully"? Does this mean only damage-dealing abilities can be copied? I am currently assuming that is not the intent.

Changed to affected by as you are correct.


Why is there even a limit if the limit is going to be greater than the number of powers you know as long as your Cha is positive? (1/level vs 1/level + 1/2 cha) Did you mean for it to be ((1/level + 1/2 cha)/2)?

You can use some abilities more than once before recharging. Clarified times in original post.


That stuff aside, the main issue is that this ability's power level varies wildly depending on what the DM sends against the PC. Some enemies are built around a specific, extremely potent ability that is their 'thing'. Capping it by CR doesn't do much - low level aberrations/undead/etc have some neat stuff. Then again, you could fight unskilled humanoids and not have any abilities to copy at all.

It is an interesting power, but I would advise against having the class be so dependent on it. This could be a 1/3 levels sort of power, with the rest filled with themed abilities that don't rely on the DM giving you have access to the right monsters.

This ability is also somewhat crazy if another party member can use planar binding.

I have specifically banned learning abilities from summons. This is their main ability and the one I am building the class around, I appreciate the feedback, but I really wanted a character that could effectively use monster powers without using shapeshift or assume supernatural ability.


Monsterous Spellcasting - Seems okay. Might not do anything for some PCs, but doesn't seem very abusable at least. Could easily start with levels 1-3rd available IMO. Letting the child have a baseline choice would help the '..aaand there is nothing for me to copy' issue. I recommenced the knowledge domain as it sorta fits, has useful spells, and doesn't have anything obnoxious on it like shapechange.

Well, the point is that you can only learn spell-like abilities that monsters can use inherently. You don't get a full spell list.


Monsterous Senses - Seems okay. Could be acquired earlier, and I'm not sure why Scent is a separate ability from this. Also, why would you pick blindsense over blindsight?

I have removed Blindsense and incorporated Scent, also added the ability to double up on a single power to double it's range to 60 ft.


Size Up - Based on wording, I'm not sure this technically does anything. I think adding his level to knowledge checks made to identify monsters would be a much clearer way to achieve this sort of effect. Could also be acquired much earlier.

Moved to level 3, added class level.


Monsterous Power - Okay.

Monsterous Cancellation - Interesting. Again, what about continuous and/or passive abilities?

Moved to level 13, clarified that it only works on actively used abilities.


One with monsters - It's okay. Level 20 is a rather late for the feat/power benefit and I'm not sure how useful swapping between those types otherwise is.

If anyone has an idea for a better capstone, I just could not think of one that appropriately expresses the way the class is supposed to feel.



What concerns me here is that the list doesn't have a few skills that I imagine to be fairly relevant and iconic of certain monster archetypes, like jump, intimidate, spellcraft (not so important) and maybe stealthy skills. I'm pretty sure search is also very useful for tracking.

Updated as this makes sense.




I feel like there really should a clause specifically saying that you are only able to do this in order to learn a new ability, or else there would never be any reason to actually roll a save against abilities that do half damage on a passed save.

I thought that was apparent but added additional wording to clarify.


as the key ability of the class, it must be really strong, and I think you've done pretty well here, save for a few things. First: consider putting a skill check on the dissection, scaling depending on the HD of the creature. Second: make it so you can't learn feats taken by a creature, unless they are racial bonus feats. Third: in line with the 2nd thing, make sure that you can't learn class abilities with imitation. That's a bit much. Fourth: I think that the DC of supernatural abilities should be based off charisma, not intelligence, as supernatural abilities are powered by force of will, not depth of thought. That might help a bit with the slight MAD this class might have.

1: I have no idea what skill I would key that too. Also, with only 4 skill points a level I think arbitratily forcing them to pick one skill to max in order to learn abilities seems unfair.

2: Done

3: Done

4: I agree and it was supposed to be that way originally, must have simply overlooked it.



I would personally include the option to improve your base land speed, and eventually offer the possibility of flight. And swimming should come with increased breath capacity/breathing underwater.

Not increasing base speed, but flight is a good idea, will work on something for the swim speed as well.


typo on abilities (crossed out). Blindsight should definitely have blindsense as a prerequisite, seeing as there is no reason to have blindsense when you can have blindsight.

Removed Blindsense and incorporated Scent.


Maybe throw in something about learning spells that have different spell levels depending on the caster class. Maybe also something about not being able to learn spells coming from class levels, but that might be too limiting.

Clarified that it is only spell-like abilities inherent to the monster that you can learn.


I don't know about you, but this screams "danger" to me. You probably ought to require paying the material components above a certain value (maybe having to pay for anything above 50gp)

Spell-likes by default have no mat cost.


Everything looks good here, save for a couple typos.


Feels underwhelming for a capstone, if you ask me. I suggest throwing in other bonuses depending of which type is chosen. Like Ooze and undead granting immunity to crits, Abberation granting bonuses to supernatural abilities, and so on.

I'd love a suggestion for a new capstone, I don't really like the one as it is, but can't seem to think of a better one.


Now there are a few things that I think should be added.
1) natural weapons. As a child of monsters, I want to rip things to shreds with claws and teeth, not swords!

Agreed and done


2) natural armor. Given light armor, and not much reason (from my perspective) to be DEX heavy, a Child of Monsters' AC is going to be pretty low. Throwing in a method of gaining natural armor would help with that.

I'll see if I can figure out a fair progression



3) possibility of higher BAB. Without monstrously high strength, it's going to be hard to go melee and still hit things.

With all the casterish stuff, giving it full BaB seems wrong to me.



4) possibility of good Ref progression. For the dodgy types.


Since they spend so much time purposefully being hit, I'm assuming that they are not so dodgy.

[Hanuman]

I'd consider what archetype you want to fill and how it is different than the potential archetype choices of this class:

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?240717-The-better-man-There-is-no-such-thing-base-class

[zegram 33]

ok, for the capstone...what about something tied to what your fighting?
say..."any powers obtained from enemies of the same type you're fighting (undead, etc) can be used without counting against your current use limit"

ties into the current capstone, allows him to effectively negate monster abilities, AND gives him a powerful boost without being TOO overpowering (a lot of creatures will obviously have some resistances to their own powers)

as an aside, I'd...maybe consider giving this guy limited telepathy, maybe even some kind of taunt or "lightning rod" ability to redirect monster abilities aimed at allies to himself (let him dive in front of them?)
otherwise, I see him either getting very annoyed every time an interesting monster ability gets used on someone else, or a kindly DM making him the inexplicable first target of everything, both of which are kinda...weird, party dynamics-speaking

on the whole though, I really like the whole "blue mage" feel

[CoolOhm]

First off, I like the class. It has a very FFXI Blue Mage feel going.:smallbiggrin:
Now on to some critiques:

Imitation




Imitation
A child of monsters can learn a supernatural or extraordinary monster ability if he is affected by it successfully in combat. He can add it to his learned list immediately. The other way for him to learn powers is to dissect a monster whom he has seen using the effect...




Have you considered allowing abilities to be learned from other Child(ren?) of Monsters who attack you? This would create some interesting situations where you don't want use your best ability until you are sure it will neutralize the other Child of Monsters (lest he learn it and throw it back at you).

Also you might want to define "dissect a monster" better. As DM the first things that come to mind are are:

How long does a dissection take?
Can the player dissect [insert creature here]? What about a skeleton or a ghost or an ooze?
Does the player need to make a skill check?
How freshly dead does this monster have to be? Could the player pack the corpse up and dissect it the next day/week?

Simply put, abilities with a fuzzy definition tend to cause disagreements. For example, without a rough time-frame for dissection DMs are likely to say dissection takes a long time, and players to say dissection is a nearly instantaneous.





Imitation
...A child of monsters can only learn abilities from monsters who are at a maximum 2 higher in CR than his ECL...




As mentioned before by Magikeeper, the restriction on ECL is not the best way to limit crazy abilities until later. For example (one of a myriad), a Basilisk is CR 5, which means a level 3 Child of Monsters could learn its ability Petrifying Gaze. I would do this by bringing along some weak creature that is likely to fail its save (something like a rat or house-cat) let it get petrified, kill the Basilisk, and use dissection to learn its power. Congrats, the ECL 3 character can now permanently turn things to stone if they fail a save. Honestly you may need to make an list of when abilities can be learned that is based on what seems balanced with the rest of 3.5, not just on CR (IF you decide to go the route of a list its a big job, so feel free to ask the forum for help :smallsmile: ).

You asked for ideas about alternate capstones, so how about this:

True Monster
At level 20 a Child of Monsters has become a monster himself in his own right. Each morning he may choose two known monster abilities to be able to used at will as natural (Su) or (Ex) abilities just as the monsters he learned them from did. Using these abilities does not count against your abilities used before needing to recharge. These abilities are able to be used in this way until the Child of Monsters selects other ones on a different morning.


Overall, a very good job. *thumbs-up*