Warrior Cleric of Hanseath [PrC]

[bbugg]

I'm looking for a PrC for a Cleric of Hanseath (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ex/20040807a).
I've borrowed heavily from Hammer of Moradin (Player'S Guide To Faerun), Ordained Champion (Complete Champion) and a little from Warpriest (Complete Divine).
This is my first attempt at a homebrew PrC, so be gentle, but let me know what you think. This is a work in progress - I'll edit it as thoughts come in.



Requirements

Must be able to cast 3rd level Cleric Spells
Waepon Focus (Great Axe)
Craft (Brewing) 9 ranks
Dwarf
Worshipper of Hanseath



Hanseath's Chosen

{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Spells|Special
1st|+1|+2|+0|+2|-|Bonus Domain; Fearless
2nd|+2|+3|+0|+3|+1 Cleric Spell Level|Diehard
3rd|+3|+3|+1|+3|-|Poweful Grip
4th|+4|+4|+1|+4|+1 Cleric Spell Level|Power Strike, 2/day
5th|+5|+4|+1|+4|-|Improved Domain Spontaneity
6th|+6|+5|+2|+5|+1 Cleric Spell Level|Stalwart
7th|+7|+5|+2|+5|-|Feast
8th|+8|+6|+2|+6|+1 Cleric Spell Level|Power Strike, 4/day
9th|+9|+6|+3|+6|-|Stone Walk
10th|+10|+7|+3|+7|+1 Cleric Spell Level|Rapid Spontaneous Casting; Ascension
[/table]


Details


Alignment:Any Chaotic
Hit Die: 1d10

Class Skills:TBD
Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier

Spells: At 2nd level and every second level thereafter, gain a level of your existing cleric spellcasting as if you had gained a level of cleric. Don't advance other cleric benefits.

Bonus Domain: Add another Domain offered by Hanseath

Fearless: You are immune to fear and fear effects.

Diehard: Gain the diehard feat, even if you do not meet the normal prerequisites.

Powerful Grip: Gain half of your strength modifier as a bonus to damage when using your axe. This increases your strength bonus to damage to 2xSTR when wielded two handed.

Power Strike: Your strike is powerful enough to daze opponents. On a successful hit, you opponent becomes dazed, FORT DC = 10 + your strength modifier + your level of Hanseath's Chosen. You must declare your attempt to hit before your attack. At 4th level gain 2 uses per day. At 8th level this increases to 4 uses per day.

Improved Domain Spontaneity: You lose the ability to spontaneously cast cure or inflict spells. You gain the ability to spontaneously cast spells from ONE of the domains granted to you by Hanseath. You must choose from which domain to spontaneously cast when you get this ability; it cannot be changed later.

Stalwart: Once per day, you may add you will save bonus to your AC as a free action. This lasts for 1 round per level of Hanseath's Chosen.

Feast: Gain Hero's Feast (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/heroesFeast.htm) as a spell like ability, once per day.

Stone Walk: Once per day, you can pass through stone. This functions like Shadow Walk (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/shadowWalk.htm) but uses the plane of Earth as opposed to Shadow.

Rapid Spontaneous Casting Any spontaneously cast domain spells with a casting time of one standard action can be cast as a swift action. Any spells with a longer casting time can be cast as a standard action. Spells effected by metamagic can be cast in their base, unmodified casting time.

Ascension: You are truely chosen by Hanseath. You gain the Outsider type with the Native subtype.




FEEDBACK PLEASE!

[bbugg]

Anybody? Anybody?

You're not saying I got it perfectly balanced on my first try, are you? :smalltongue:

[Valairn]

With so many caster levels lost, a full base attack bonus would be totally fine here.

Also your table and your entry on spells disagree. Does the player only gets spells every even level, or does it get spells every level past first?

[bbugg]

Thanks Valairn, I've fixed the text to match the table - that is what I had intended.
I also made it a full BAB progression with D10 hit points.

How do you feel about balance of the rest of the stuff? I really don't have a fell for it at all..

[Valairn]

Considering the fact that this class if taken to full will never get 9th level spells, all of those abilities you granted are very powerful, but limited in scope. The only thing of note is the Powerful Grip class ability, which is a nasty buff to a divine oriented power attacker. This class has a lot of really excellent synergy which I enjoy. And definitely feels more like a War-Priest than the War Priest does.

This class ends up with 7th level spells at level 20. Which is good.

Here's the kicker though.

Rapid Spontaneous Casting: Free quickened Righteous Might, and Divine Power that I don't have to prepare? Holy crap! That's pretty good. In addition I can Dimension Door as a swift action without having to prepare it.

That is really powerful. Also you don't specify that the domains have to be ones gained from this deity. So I can pick up another prestige cleric class that grants additional domains and spontaneously cast those as well, quickened no less, and there are some pretty ridiculously powerful domains out there, so you may want to specify that its only Hanseath's domains that can be used like that, but then again you don't have to so /shrug.

Honestly I love this class. It denies the caster 8th and 9th level spells to be able to pull off those powerful combos I talked about, so in that regard it may still be balanced. But otherwise this class is a Divine Warrior's dream basket and I like it a lot. But hopefully someone else comes in here and can tell you whether being able to do all that stuff with 7th level spells available is balanced or not, cause I'm not entirely sure.

[bbugg]

Thanks for the feedback Valairn! Yeah, I was aiming for a Warrior Priest, not a Warpriest. Hanseath doesn't care about leading troops...

I don't think my description for rapid spontaneous casting was clear enough - I'm fixing that up now.

I actually meant that you can cast spontaneously from only ONE of your domains (you'll have at least 3 by then), not all of them (and you're right - I should specify that it has to be from Hanseath). I like this because it makes you more warrior-y and less heal-y, and also makes you more like Hanseath.

Both of those spontaneous feats I stole pretty directly from Ordained Champion (CC) - except for OC, you get them at levels 1 and 4 of the PrC and they're specifically for the WAR domain (of course, you have to lvl7 to get in to OC, as opposed to my lvl5). It seemed pretty strong to me, so I shifted them to later in the class, but allowed you to choose if it should be WAR or another of Hanseath's domains.

Maybe Powerful grip is too strong.. It's taken from Moradin's Hammer PrC. There you get it at PrC level 3, or min char lvl 10. I give it to you at min character level 8. Too early? I was thinking that it was nice, but not amazing. For an 18 str, that's an extra +2 to damage...

[Valairn]

Powerful Grip is nice, but like you said its not ridiculous. Its probably fine the way it is.

[bbugg]

Nobody else? My DM won't let me use this unless I hear from at least three people... We're not all that experienced with balancing new stuff...

[bbugg]

Ok, I've changed a few things but didn't want to overwright the what I had before because I'm not sure about it.
The thought is that Stone Walk is pretty redundant with Dimension Door and Teleport (possibly spontaneous), so I scrapped it and gave him a burrow speed instead. I like this - fits with Hanseath's 'travel' mentality and also gives the 'outsider' designation more crunch.
I also got rid of Stalwart - Hanseath isn't into AC and gave him faster movement, again fits the 'travel' theme. I moved the bonus domain to later - it's pretty powerful as a level 1 thing.

Let me know what you think! Is this better or worse than before? Other thoughts?



Requirements

Must be able to cast 3rd level Cleric Spells
Waepon Focus (Great Axe)
Craft (Brewing) 9 ranks
Dwarf
Worshipper of Hanseath



Hanseath's Chosen

{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Spells|Special
1st|+1|+2|+0|+2|-|Fast Movement; Fearless
2nd|+2|+3|+0|+3|+1 Cleric Spell Level|Diehard
3rd|+3|+3|+1|+3|-|Poweful Grip
4th|+4|+4|+1|+4|+1 Cleric Spell Level|Power Strike, 2/day
5th|+5|+4|+1|+4|-|Bonus Domain; Improved Domain Spontaneity
6th|+6|+5|+2|+5|+1 Cleric Spell Level|
7th|+7|+5|+2|+5|-|Feast
8th|+8|+6|+2|+6|+1 Cleric Spell Level|Power Strike, 4/day
9th|+9|+6|+3|+6|+1 Cleric Spell Level|
10th|+10|+7|+3|+7|-|Rapid Spontaneous Casting; Ascension; Burrow
[/table]

Details

Alignment:Any Chaotic
Hit Die: 1d10

Class Skills:TBD
Skill Points at Each Level: 2 + Int modifier

Spells: At 2nd level and every second level thereafter, gain a level of your existing cleric spellcasting as if you had gained a level of cleric. Don't advance other cleric benefits.

Fast Movement: Hanseath's Chosen has a land speed faster than most dwarves. His base land speed is increased by +10 feet.

Fearless: You are immune to fear and fear effects.

Diehard: Gain the diehard feat, even if you do not meet the normal prerequisites.

Powerful Grip: Gain half of your strength modifier as a bonus to damage when using your axe. This increases your strength bonus to damage to 2xSTR when wielded two handed.

Power Strike: Your strike is powerful enough to daze opponents. On a successful hit, you opponent becomes dazed, FORT DC = 10 + your strength modifier + your level of Hanseath's Chosen. You must declare your attempt to hit before your attack. At 4th level gain 2 uses per day. At 8th level this increases to 4 uses per day.

Bonus Domain: Add another Domain offered by Hanseath

Improved Domain Spontaneity: You lose the ability to spontaneously cast cure or inflict spells. You gain the ability to spontaneously cast spells from ONE of the domains granted to you by Hanseath. You must choose from which domain to spontaneously cast when you get this ability; it cannot be changed later.

Feast: Gain Hero's Feast (http://www.d20srd.org/srd/spells/heroesFeast.htm) as a spell like ability, once per day.

Rapid Spontaneous Casting Any spontaneously cast domain spells with a casting time of one standard action can be cast as a swift action. Any spells with a longer casting time can be cast as a standard action. Spells effected by metamagic can be cast in their base, unmodified casting time.

Ascension: You are truely chosen by Hanseath. You are invited to ascend. You gain the Outsider type with the Native subtype.

Burrow: As an outsider, you gain a burrow speed equal to half of your base land speed.

[tordal]

I think this is great. This is basically the same kind of character I've been trying to creat or find a prestige class for. Hanseath is perfect and the description even speaks of clerics and berserker rages, but how can we have both? That's what I want. I feel that I have to multi-class as a barbarian(berserker really) and a cleric to hit the nail on the head.

There is no berserker feat or rage feat that could accommodate. Rage is too built into the class of Barbarian, so I understand why it should be special... but it's more for effect and it's cumbersome to have to multiclass such opposites, when it fits in with a Cleric of Hanseath.

If I were to make my own Prestige class, I would build in some kind of berserker feat or spell instead of some of those badass feats you have, and I would do it early in the list.

[JoshuaZ]

Rapid Spontaneous Casting Any spontaneously cast domain spells with a casting time of one standard action can be cast as a swift action. Any spells with a longer casting time can be cast as a standard action. Spells effected by metamagic can be cast in their base, unmodified casting time.



I assume when you say "Any spells with a longer casting time" you mean any domain spells with a longer casting time. That should be clarified.

This ability is powerful but is well-balanced by the loss of caster levels.



Ascension: You are truely chosen by Hanseath. You gain the Outsider type with the Native subtype.


You may want to add the standard disclaimer "Unlike other outsiders, the Warrior Cleric of Hanseath can still be brought back from the dead as if she were a member of her previous creature type." - This is adopted from the same statement for when the monk gains the outsider type.

[pfcblue]

Love this. My only concern is that I can't decide on anything past Cleric 5 / Hanseath's Chosen 10. Most I can really think of is Fighter, Barb, or Divine Champion.

Fighter? I'd have most of the key Bonus feats by 15 anyway.
DC? Fitting, but not particularly exciting. (Limited to 5 levels, anyway)
Barb? Rage fits well with the zerker style, and DR is always nice. Fast Movement is a non-stacking overlap. Very epic'able for Very High-Level Games (Would be epic Barb at cLvl 35). Most likely choice based on the info I have.

Thoughts?