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Proven_Paradox
2008-08-26, 11:32 PM
The Hand of Gruumsh

The god of the orcs is a cruel, brutal master, and expects his followers to follow his examples or face terrible consequences. His clerics and favored souls are few and far between, as most of his followers choose to follow the path of the barbarian. A notable and feared few of those followers choose to instead become crusaders, masters of enduring brutality more than distributing it. To the very few crusaders to whom he also grants spontaneous spells, a unique path is open: That of the Hand of Gruumsh, masters of both enduring and distributing suffering.

Hit Dice
d12

Requirements
To become a Hand of Gruumsh, you must fulfill all the following criteria.
Race: Orc
Deity: Gruumsh
Feats: Power Attack
Spellcasting: Must be able to cast spontaneous Divine spells of 2nd level or above.
Maneuvers: Two Devoted Spirit maneuvers, one Devoted Spirit stance
Special: Steely Resolve 10 class feature

Class skills
The Hand of Gruumsh’s class skills (and the key ability for each skills) are: Climb (Str), Concentration (Con), Intimidate (Cha), Jump (Str), Knowledge (Religion) (Int), Ride (Dex), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).

Skill Points per Level
2 + int modifier

THE HAND OF GRUUMSH
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Maneuvers Known|Maneuvers Readied|Stances known|Special|Spells

1st|
+1|
+2|
+0|
+2|
+1|
+0|
+0|Steely Resolve +5, Suffering Spellcaster|
-

2nd|
+2|
+3|
+0|
+3|
+0|
+0|
+0|Brutal Resolve|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

3rd|
+3|
+3|
+1|
+3|
+1|
+1|
+0| |+1 level of existing spellcasting class

4th|
+4|
+4|
+1|
+4|
+0|
+0|
+0|Savage Rage|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

5th|
+5|
+4|
+1|
+4|
+1|
+0|
+1|Steely Resolve +10 |
-

6th|
+6|
+5|
+2|
+5|
+0|
+1|
+0|Favor of One-Eye|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

7th|
+7|
+5|
+2|
+5|
+1|
+0|
+0|Endure the Pain|+1 level of existing spellcasting class

8th|
+8|
+6|
+2|
+6|
+0|
+0|
+0|Improved Furious Conterstrike |+1 level of existing spellcasting class

9th|
+9|
+6|
+3|
+6|
+1|
+1|
+0|Steely Resolve +15 |+1 level of existing spellcasting class

10th|
+10|
+7|
+3|
+7|
+0|
+0|
+1|Supremacy through Pain|+1 level of existing spellcasting class [/table]

Class Features
The following are the class features of the Hand of Gruumsh.

Weapon and Armor Proficiency
A Hand of Gruumsh gains no new armor proficiencies. If she was not already, she gains proficiency in all orcish racial weapons, such as the orc double axe.

Maneuvers
At each even numbered level, a Hand of Gruumsh gains a new maneuver from the Devoted Spirit or Iron Heart disciplines. You must meet a maneuver's prerequisite to learn it. You add your full Hand of Gruumsh levels to your Initiator Level to determine your total Initiator Level and your highest-level maneuvers known.

At third, sixth, and ninth levels, you gain an additional readied maneuver.

Stances
At fifth and tenth levels, you gain access to a stance from the Devoted Spirit or Iron Heart disciplines. You must meet a stance's prerequisites to learn it.

Steely Resolve (Ex)
The capacity of a Hand of Gruumsh’s Steely Resolve damage pool continues to improve. At first level, and every four levels thereafter (levels 5 and 9), her Steely Resolve capacity improves by five (to +5 at 1st, +10 at 5th, and +15 at 9th). This stacks with any other effects that improve the capacity of the Steely Resolve pool.

Suffering Spellcaster (Su)
One of the first lessons a new Hand of Gruumsh learns is how to channel fury normally reserved for her physical attacks to her spells. Beginning at first level, any time she casts a spell with damage in her damage pool, she may add the bonus granted by Furious Counterstrike to the spell’s caster level. She may add half that amount to the spell’s save DCs (if any, rounded down). The bonus to spell DCs may not exceed half of her Hand of Gruumsh levels + 1.

Brutal Resolve (Ex)
As a Hand of Gruumsh walks further down the path, she learns to use her fury to strengthen her defenses as well as power her offense and spells. Beginning at 2nd level, she may add the bonus provided by her Furious Counterstrike to one of her saves. Which save it applies to is chosen each round during the Hand of Gruumsh’s turn as a free action.

Savage Rage (Ex)
As a Hand of Gruumsh continues to train, she learns to channel her fury into a rage similar to that of her barbarian peers. Beginning at 4th level, any time the Hand of Gruumsh’s Steely Resolve damage pool becomes full, she may enter the Savage Rage stance. While in the Savage Rage stance, the capacity of her Steely Resolve damage pool doubles. She temporarily gains a +4 bonus to strength, a +4 bonus to constitution, and takes a -2 penalty to AC. The increase in Constitution increases the Hand of Gruumsh’s hit points by 2 points per level, but these hit points go away when she exits the Savage Rage stance and her constitution score to drops back to normal. While in this stance, a Hand of Gruumsh cannot use any Charisma-, Dexterity-, or Intelligence-based skills (except for Balance, Escape Artist, Intimidate, and Ride), the Concentration skill, or any abilities that require patience or concentration, nor can she cast spells or activate magic items that require a command word, a spell trigger (such as a wand), or spell completion (such as a scroll) to function. She can use any feat she has except Combat Expertise, item creation feats, and metamagic feats. She may remain in the Savage Rage stance as long as she begins her turn with at least 10 points in her damage pool. At the beginning of any turn that she begins with less damage in her pool, she automatically exits the Savage Rage stance. She may shift out of this stance and into another as normal for martial adepts.

Favor of One-Eye (Su)
Gruumsh rewards those few who live up to his expectations, and any Hand of Gruumsh who had made it this far without dying has suffered enough to earn a small boon from the One-Eyed god. Beginning at 6th level, a Hand of Gruumsh may use her constitution modifier to determine the save DCs of any spells she casts.

Endure the Pain (Ex)
As her focus on her fury continues, a Hand of Gruumsh learns to endure pain in order to strengthen herself. Beginning at 7th level, at the end of her turn when her damage pool normally empties, she may choose to delay taking any amount of damage from it for another round. If she chooses to retain any amount of damage in the pool, that amount immediately doubles. She cannot retain more than half the maximum capacity of her damage pool in this way.

For example, Janna the Hand of Gruumsh has a Steely Resolve pool with a capacity of 20 damage. It is the end of her turn, and it currently holds 7 damage. She may choose to retain that damage in her pool, in which case her damage pool has 14 damage stored. She may choose to take 3 damage now, and retain 4 damage, in which case she loses 3 hit points, and her damage pool has 8 damage stored. If she has 14 damage in her damage pool, she must lose 4 hit points at the end of her turn, but may choose to retain 10 of that damage if she wishes.

Improved Furious Counterstrike (Ex)
The Hand of Gruumsh learns to tap into her fury better than other crusaders. Beginning at 8th level, every 4 points of damage in her damage pool increases the bonus provided by her Furious Counterstrike by 1, rather than every 5 points of damage.

Supremacy through Pain (Ex)
The greatest of the Hands of Gruumsh gain his greatest power: not only does she become immune to pain, but its presence empowers her and fuels her brutal assaults. At 10th level, The Hand of Gruumsh becomes immune to effects related to pain, such as the effects of a Symbol of Pain. In addition, at any time she would normally take more damage than she can put into her Steely Resolve damage pool, she may enter the Supremacy through Pain stance as an immediate action. While in this stance, the capacity of her Steely Resolve pool becomes infinite. When the pool is automatically emptied at the end of her turn, she takes half of the damage (rounded down). At the end of an encounter, she automatically exits the Supremacy through Pain stance. While in the Supremacy through Pain stance, she cannot retain damage in her damage pool through Endure the Pain.

---

So, this is my first homebrew in quite a while. A player in a game I'm running is considering replacing their slain crusader (rest in peace, Elet) with a orcish favored soul/crusader. I liked the concept behind it, and made mention of perhaps making a PrC to make it work about five hours. I bounced some idea off another player (thanks Swooper), and got so into it that I decided to go ahead and write one up. This went from concept to text in about three and a half hours, so I'm sure there are problems, but I'd like some comments. I'm not certain whether I want to call this balanced or not. It fuses two classes that don't necessarily mesh that well, and can't be entered until level 9, so it needs to be quite powerful, but I fear I might have gone too far. What do you think, guys?

Stycotl
2008-08-27, 12:05 PM
this is a very cool concept, and the flavor works well with the steely resolve/furious counterstrike combo. but, i think that the abilities here are way overpowered.

you have three different ways to increase the damage pool/melee bonuses, all of which stack to produce a +14 (if i am remembering the sr/fc mechanics correctly) bonus to hits and damage by the time you have a 30-pt pool. that is tremendous bonus--over all, better than a persistant true strike. granted, the character won't get that bonus until 23rd level or so, because of multiclassing issues. but then, there are always the complete scoundrel-style multiclassing feats that would allow favored soul and crusader levels to stack for certain purposes (which is a good idea).

the sr/fc being applied to magic is a very cool idea--i like that one a lot. i'll have to look at the mechanics more before i am sure i like the way it was handled, but so far it seems cool.

so for now, i would tone down the damage pool increases, just scale it back some so that there are not so many improvements to it. maybe throw a martial boost or strike in there instead.

aaron out.

EDIT: missed the capstone. so, 4 ways to increase the sr/fc combo, and the last one makes it infinite. it really just seems waaaaaay too powerful.

Proven_Paradox
2008-08-27, 12:37 PM
you have three different ways to increase the damage pool/melee bonuses, all of which stack to produce a +14 (if i am remembering the sr/fc mechanics correctly) bonus to hits and damage by the time you have a 30-pt pool. that is tremendous bonus--over all, better than a persistant true strike. granted, the character won't get that bonus until 23rd level or so, because of multiclassing issues. but then, there are always the complete scoundrel-style multiclassing feats that would allow favored soul and crusader levels to stack for certain purposes (which is a good idea).

Keep in mind that if she gets the full +14 damage bonus, she's taken 50 damage in one round at least. She can't afford to do that terribly often. On an average round, I'd be very surprised to see her getting more than a +6 from Furious Counterstrike, and that's assuming enemies keep their attention solely on her. A significant boost, but nothing quite as game breaking as a persistent true strike that somehow affects more than one attack. (The text of true strike states that it only affects the next attack, so persistent true strike would be a terrible waste.) If you're using Endure the Pain to maintain a high damage pool, you're also dealing a massive amount of damage to yourself. As for the capstone, it's the same deal: it holds potential to make you incredibly powerful, but it requires you to take a massive amount of damage for that to work. This aspect of the class makes it prone to going nova, and frankly I'm fine with that--it seems like a devoted follower of Gruumsh would relish in such a death. To really take advantage of this class, you have to take enough damage to kill you. I think that merits having some very strong abilities.

Am I in the minority there?

Stycotl
2008-08-27, 01:09 PM
ok, that does balance it out more than i was thinking. i still think not enough, but i can understand the premise.

and the persistent true strike thing was specifically talking about some way to make the spell apply to every attack. and yes, i still think that a +14 to hit and damage is better than a +20 to hit, mitigating factors aside.

Toliudar
2008-08-27, 04:21 PM
Wow. Regardless of what further revisions it goes through, I'd be honoured to work towards this PrC. Thanks and kudos for a flavourful mix. I LOVE the image of the Supremacy Through Pain.

Proven_Paradox
2008-08-31, 11:45 PM
I don't like bumping my own topics, but I'd really, really appreciate some more feedback on this class. Espectially regarding balance issues.

So far, I've talked to two people about this class over IM. The first seemed to hold a similar opinion to that of Stycotl: the class's boosts to Furious Counterstrike makes the class too strong. After discussing things at length to this person--pointing out that taking enough damage to fully utilize this class's Furious Counterstrike potential should be a rare event, and that doing so puts the Hand at a very real risk of death, he eventually ruled it powerful but balanced.

The second seemed to think that it was about where it needs to be power-wise (and helpfully pointed out a few typos).

Armond
2008-09-01, 05:55 AM
I think it important to mention that one of the major reasons I (as the second person mentioned) deemed this balanced was because of the limited nature of in-combat healing in D&D (unlike in most MMOs, your healers get a set amount of healing spells per day, and regenerating these spells takes an entire night) and the fact that, as the party already discovered, stopping to rest can have very real consequences.

Realistically, a player simply can't afford to consistently take enough damage to make this class broken - unless, for whatever reason, he's got over nine thousand potions of CSW lying around. (Though if he did, the AoOs would really help him out.)

Frosty
2008-09-04, 01:44 PM
Wands of Lesser Vigor do help though. But you know, this isn't bad compared to a lot of classes, although it does out-pace the Crusader a bit. Whatever, I'm fine with it for now. It can't be any better than an uber-charger I guess.

Deepblue706
2008-09-04, 03:35 PM
Pretty neat stuff. Poweful, I think, but not overly so. I'm glad you were wise enough to put a limit on how much they can boost their spell DCs. Although, that may still be a rather strong ability...

Proven_Paradox
2008-09-04, 04:38 PM
Well, this class has some pretty severe MAD anyway. By boosting the spell save DCs, that MAD is reduced somewhat. Switching the DC determining stat to Con reduces it more, and once both of those are done, this class's save DCs will STILL probably be lower than those of a full-caster by a significant margin.

Plus, to get the save DC bonuses, you still have to take a pretty massive amount of damage on a regular basis.

ForzaFiori
2008-10-03, 04:43 AM
At first I thought it seemed slightly over powered, both for Stycotl reasons, and because you give nearly full casting with it. However, after hearing your reasoning, I suppose it might be balanced, though Endure the Pain allows the to stay in their rage thing constantly, since they can just take ten of their damage and double the other ten every round. Combine that with good healing (from a cleric with a wand maybe, which ever cleric should have plenty of by lv 16) and then give it spell casting, and it seems pretty powerful.

SilentNight
2008-10-03, 08:32 AM
Great concept and flavor, kudos. I'm not familiar with the crusader abilities so I can't really judge balance. Great class though.

Proven_Paradox
2008-10-03, 11:34 AM
At first I thought it seemed slightly over powered, both for Stycotl reasons, and because you give nearly full casting with it. However, after hearing your reasoning, I suppose it might be balanced, though Endure the Pain allows the to stay in their rage thing constantly, since they can just take ten of their damage and double the other ten every round. Combine that with good healing (from a cleric with a wand maybe, which ever cleric should have plenty of by lv 16) and then give it spell casting, and it seems pretty powerful.

The trouble with relying on healing is that that means SOMEONE is spending an action on it every round--an action that could instead be used to kick some ass. That means that the Hand gets to stomp on stuff a bit harder, but typically I'd rather get a good buff from the cleric/druid, or let them do some zilla stuff.

Still, perhaps you're right here. Perhaps it would be better to have it so that one cannot use Endure the Pain while in the Savage Rage stance?