[PRC] Dragon Aspect Disciple
I'm making a PRC for a friend of mine who is playing a Dragon Shaman in my campaign. As we all know, Dragon Shamans are notoriously weak. Not Monk weak, but still weak. He's getting frustrated that he can't tank as well, do damage as well, or do battlefield control as well as his allies can, so I whipped up this class for him and I'd like some feedback. It's likely more powerful than most melee classes, but then melee classes are sort of weak. I took ideas from 4e and Tome of Battle and borrowed heavily from the Chameleon to make a class that isn't stuck in any one role. Please tell me what you think. Again, I realize it may look overpowered, but it's tailor-made for a dragon shaman, which are weak to begin with.
Fluff wise, the charcter will take the class after realizing that in order to become stronger, he'll to embrace all aspects of life, dragonhood, and tactics. Pure brute force as he has done in the past will no longer suffice, especially after a particularly humilaiting defeat in a 1v1 duel against a Paladin.
Dragon Aspect Disciple
Requirements:
*Neutral in at least one alignment axis
*Hide or Move Silently or Bluff or Survival 10 ranks, Knowledge (nature) 14 ranks, Spellcraft 3 ranks.
*two breath related feats, two feats on the list of Fighter bonus feats, skill focus (any)
*All stats 12 or above
*Must own at least 200k gold worth of valuable art, gems, platinum, gold or other valuables. This is basically liquid assets and not equipment that the Disciple uses in adventuring.
*Special: To continue advancing as a Dragon Aspect Disciple, the character must accumulate a bigger and bigger treasure hoard. The exact amount is specified by the DM.
Dragon Aspect Disciple PrC
{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1st|+1|+0|+0|+0|Skill Focus Aptitude 1/day, Aspect focus 2/day (+2)
2nd|+2|+0|+0|+0|Draconic blessing +2
3rd|+3|+1|+1|+1|Aspect focus 2/day (+3), Bonus Feat
4th|+4|+1|+1|+1|Fast focus, Aspect focus 3/day (+3), Draconic blessing +4
5th|+5|+1|+1|+1|Skill Focus Aptitude 2/day, Aspect Focus 3/day (+4), Double Aspect
6th|+6|+2|+2|+2|Dragon Wings, Draconic blessing +6
7th|+7|+2|+2|+2|Swift focus, Aspect focus 4/day (+4)[/table]
Hit Die: 1d10
Skills: 4 + int modifier per level. Class list includes Dragon Shaman base skills plus every skill associated with a dragon totem plus Knowledge (Arcana) and Appraise
Bonus Feat: At 3rd level, you gain a bonus feat. You must meet the prerequisites for this feat. At the start of each day, you can choose to change your bonus feat to any other feat for which you meet the prerequisites by meditating for 5 minutes.
Aspect focus (ex): Twice per day, you can select one of three areas upon which to focus your balanced talents. After meditating for 30 minutes (usually right after waking up), you gain the chosen abilities for 24 hours or until you change your Aspect focus. An Aspect focus ability is usable twice per day at 1st level, three times per day at 4th level, and four times per day at 7th level.
At 1st level, you may only focus on one Aspect at a time. You may expend the 2nd use of your Aspect focus and meditate for 30 minutes to change your focus for the next 24 hours.
Fast Focus: At 4th level, gaining a focus only requires 5 minutes of meditation instead of 30 minutes.
Double Aspect: At 5th level, you can adopt two Aspect focuses in the same amount of time it previously took for you to adopt one. You can't adopt the same focus twice simultaneously. You can still only adopt as many focuses per day as indicated by your focus ability. In other words, adopting two focuses at once counts as two uses of the ability.
Swift Focus: At 7th level, gaining a focus only requires a full round action that does not provoke an Attack of Opportunity provided you make a DC 15 Concentration check. There is no penalty for failing the Concentration check other than not being protected from AoOs.
Whenever you focus on an aspect, you also gain 3 special abilities. You may only activate one of these abilities per round. When you gain the ability to focus on two aspects as once at 5th level, you may activate two of these abilities per round, but the two abilities can’t be from the same focus. For example, if you have both Combat Focus and Battlefield Focus at the same time, you may activate Heavy-handed and Tactical Bash in the same round, but you can’t activate Heavy-handed and Charging Fury in the same round.
You may choose from the following list of Focuses:
Combat Focus: You gain proficiency with all martial weapons. You also gain a +2 competence bonus to weapon damage rolls and a +2 bonus on Fortitude saves. At 3rd level, the bonuses improve to +3. At 5th level, the bonuses improve to +4. The 3 special abilities are:
Heavy-handed: Activating this power is a Free action that lasts until the beginning of your next turn. When you Power Attack, you gain an extra damage for each point of attack penalty you take. This extra damage has a cap equal to your levels in Dragon Aspect Disciple.
Charging Fury: Your charging Bull-rush is harder to resist than normal and can hurt opponents. Make a normal charging bullrush attempt (using a full-round action as normal) with a bonus to your strength check equal to your levels in Dragon Aspect Disciple (in addition to the +2 you get for charging). For each square you push your opponent back by, you deal 1d6 damage that is not affected by Damage Resistance. If you slam your opponent into a wall or other solid object, you deal an additional 5d6 + 3x your Str bonus in damage that is not affected by DR. At 5th level, this additional damage increases to 8d6 + 3x your Str bonus.
Ancient Toughness: Activating this power is a Swift action that lasts until the beginning of your next turn. If you manage to deal damage to an opponent this turn, you gain DR 10/Adamantine until the beginning of your next turn. At 5th level, the DR increases to 20/Adamantine. Your skin visibly hardens. You must wait at least 1d4 turns before using this ability again.
Battlefield Focus: You gain proficiency with all martial weapons. You also gain a +2 competence bonus to attack rolls made in an Attack of Opportunity and a +2 bonus on Will saves and you also gain the Improved Trip feat. At 3rd level, the bonuses improve to +3. At 5th level, the bonuses improve to +4. The 3 special abilities are:
Intimidating Aura: Activating this power is a Free action that lasts until the beginning of your next turn. All enemies that are not immune to mind-affecting or fear effects and are within 10 ft of you have trouble concentrating due to how menacing you are. Whenever an enemy that is affected tries to make a Concentration check (such as to cast defensively or to use a Maneuver), you make an Intimidate check as a free action that can be made during someone else’s turn. He is treated as if possessing X ranks in the skill less than normal, where X is your Intimidate check divided by 2, rounded down, minimum 10.
Tactical Bash: You make a single melee attack against a creature as a Standard Action. If this attack hits, calculate damage normally, then double that amount. That is the damage this attack deals. In addition to the damage this attack deals, you may push the target back 10 feet. For every 3 points of Power Attack you use, you may push the target back another square. You do not move with the target. The target does not provoke attacks of opportunities for being pushed back.
Relentless Pursuit: Activating this ability is an IMMEDIATE action. When an opponent adjacent to you moves (normal movement. Not teleportation of ethereal travel), you can activate this ability to immediately move to any square adjacent to the target as soon as the target stops moving, as long as the distance you cover is less than or equal to your speed, and assuming you are capable of moving to that square (if you can’t fly and the target can fly, then you can’t use it to follow the target into the air). This movement does not provoke attacks of opportunity. You must wait at least 1d4 turns before using this ability again starting at the beginning of your next turn.
Breath Focus: You gain an extra breath attack as detailed below. The time between uses of all of your breath weapons lowers by one (down to a minimum of one round). If you already have a breath weapon, the range of it is increased to a 30 ft. cone or 60 ft. line, if it naturally has a shorter range. You also gain a +2 competence bonus to the DC of any Breath weapon you use and a +2 bonus on Reflex saves. At 3rd level, the bonuses improve to +3. At 5th level, the bonuses improve to +4, and the range of all of your breath weapons increase to a 60 ft cone or 120 ft. line. Any existing breath weapon you have that deals damage becomes more damaging. At 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th level, add an extra d6 damage to your existing breath weapons that deal damage. The 3 special abilities are:
Recover Breath: As a Move action, you reduce the cool-down of all of your current breath weapons by 1 round. For example, if you have 3 turns left on Breath Attack #1 and 5 turns left on Breath Attack #2, the time left is now 2 turns and 4 turns respectively.
Counter Breath: To use this ability, you ready a Standard Action to use one of your breath attacks. You may choose which one of your breath weapons to use. You must have a breath weapon ready and not in cool-down. If an enemy uses a breath weapon and the enemy is within range of your breath weapon AND no allies will end up in your area of effect from your breath weapon, you may then use your breath weapon at the same time as the enemy. The energies from your own breath attempt to cancel out the energies from the weapon of your opponent. Make an opposed check. Roll 1d20 + the DC of the breath weapon. If you tie or beat the result of the enemy, the enemy’s breath attack is canceled, but is still considered used. If your result is less than that of the opponent’s weapon, then the DC of the opponent’s breath weapon is reduced by 10. If an enemy is in the way when you attempt to use your breath weapon to counter, the enemy takes damage as normal (and gets a save as normal, if applicable), but your opposed check is made at a –2 penalty.
Extra Breath: As a Standard Action (Su), you can breathe out a cone of fire or a cone of weakening gas. Base damage is 6d6, as modified by the bonuses specified above (extra d6 at 1, 3 5, and 7th level), and the base save DC is 10 + ½ your levels in something other than Dragon Aspect Disciple + your Con modifier + the bonuses conferred by gaining your Breath Focus. The weakening gas gives a strength penalty (Fort negates) equal to 1d10 + ½ your Dragon Aspect Disciple levels for 1 minute. You may use this ability once every 1d4 rounds. Keep track of cool-downs of this and your other breath weapons separately.
Draconic blessing (ex): At 2nd level, when choosing an Aspect focus, you also gain a +2 competence bonus to an ability score of your choice. This bonus lasts until you change your Aspect focus. At 4th level this bonus improves to +4, and at 7th level to +6.
Skill Focus Aptitude (ex): At 1st level, once per day you may meditate for one minute to change what skill one of your Skill Focus applies to. At 5th level, you may do this twice per day.
Draconic Wings (ex): At 6th level, you sprout a pair of dragon wings that let's you fly at 60ft with Good maneuverability.
Re: [PRC] Dragon Aspect Disciple
hey this looks good but most normal PRC do not have stat req. but skill pt need to enter it which is the same thing. you also might what to make a table so people can read this PRC faster and so you get more feedback. there is only one neutral in the alignment axis so this might be alittle redunt but thats my take. But over all it looks good.
Re: [PRC] Dragon Aspect Disciple
Hmm? There is neutral in tersm of Law vs Chaos, and also in Good vs Evil. I made it into a table for ease of reading as well.
Re: [PRC] Dragon Aspect Disciple
Too much damage and immediate-level flexibility on the breath weapon. Have the character choose which type of breath weapon from a standard selection when they Focus, and set the base damage ratings as for Very Young dragon; if they already have a breath weapon of that type, increase its DC by +2, its range by 50% and its damage by 2 or 4 dice depending on whether it's a half-progression or full. At levels 4/7/10* give them either 2 dice or 1 die of damage, again depending on the breath weapon's normal growth rate (i.e. +1d6 for a white breath weapon, +2d4 for black, etc)
I seem to have missed where they either receive, or become immune/resistant to, Frightful Presence. An oversight, I'm sure :smallbiggrin:
At least, it seems appropriate that there be a Focus ability which imposes a Frightful Presence and makes them immune to that of "other" dragons, though you might stipulate that they choose a dragon type. :)
Oh, and the proper plural of "focus" is "foci" :)
Edit - you should probably change the skill requirement to 13 (level 10 equivalent). Tough to take 10 levels in a PrC after needing 11 to qualify, without going epic. And while I could be wrong, I'd thought dragons were classed under "arcana" rather than "nature," no?
*if a dragon needs 3 hit dice to increase its breath weapon, then so does this class. :)
Re: [PRC] Dragon Aspect Disciple
Why are they neutral? The prime, True Dragons are all quite inherently un-neutral. Unless he's drawing on the Psionic Crystal Dragons, it should require him to be not neutral on any aspect of his alignment. The Metallic Dragons are either Chaotic Good or Lawful Good; the Chromatic are all Chaotic Evil or Lawful Evil. Not a speck of neutrality in the iconic bunch.
Likewise, your feat requirements are...stringent. Five feats is an amazing task; even classes like the Archmage require only four. Granted, Skill Focus is a bonus feat for the Dragon Shaman, but even still.
Additionally, dragons are covered under Knowledge: Arcana, not Nature, and requiring a 200,000 gp equivalent horde is...rather insane. That is the entire allotted Wealth-by-Level of a 15th level character as a prerequisite for a PrC that is supposed to be entered by 11th level...not really feasible. I get that this is essentially a handout, but if you're going to go to the trouble to create it, with prerequisites like this you'd be better off just listing a single qualifier:
Special: DM gives you this class.
I like the idea, I'm just not a fan of the execution.
Re: [PRC] Dragon Aspect Disciple
Quote:
Originally Posted by
fangthane
Too much damage and immediate-level flexibility on the breath weapon. Have the character choose which type of breath weapon from a standard selection when they Focus, and set the base damage ratings as for Very Young dragon; if they already have a breath weapon of that type, increase its DC by +2, its range by 50% and its damage by 2 or 4 dice depending on whether it's a half-progression or full. At levels 4/7/10* give them either 2 dice or 1 die of damage, again depending on the breath weapon's normal growth rate (i.e. +1d6 for a white breath weapon, +2d4 for black, etc)
I seem to have missed where they either receive, or become immune/resistant to, Frightful Presence. An oversight, I'm sure :smallbiggrin:
At least, it seems appropriate that there be a Focus ability which imposes a Frightful Presence and makes them immune to that of "other" dragons, though you might stipulate that they choose a dragon type. :)
Oh, and the proper plural of "focus" is "foci" :)
Edit - you should probably change the skill requirement to 13 (level 10 equivalent). Tough to take 10 levels in a PrC after needing 11 to qualify, without going epic. And while I could be wrong, I'd thought dragons were classed under "arcana" rather than "nature," no?
*if a dragon needs 3 hit dice to increase its breath weapon, then so does this class. :)
What class are you looking at? This is NOT a 10 level PrC. It only has 7 levels. As for Frightful Presence, Dragon Shamans are already immune to them.
Quote:
Additionally, dragons are covered under Knowledge: Arcana, not Nature, and requiring a 200,000 gp equivalent horde is...rather insane. That is the entire allotted Wealth-by-Level of a 15th level character as a prerequisite for a PrC that is supposed to be entered by 11th level...not really feasible. I get that this is essentially a handout, but if you're going to go to the trouble to create it, with prerequisites like this you'd be better off just listing a single qualifier:
GryffonDurime: Unfortunately, Dragon Shamans do not have Know (Arcana) as a class skill, so I chose the next closest thing. Dragon Shamans do have Know (Nature), so there it goes. Yes, I agree that 200,000 gold is rather insane. this is pretty much entered only after plot points (like slaying an enemy dragon and taking its entire hoard) and of course if other DMs want to use this they are free to relax this requirement. I am actually planning for the character in my campaign to enter this PrC at level 13 or 14.
Quote:
Five feats is an amazing task
: True, but I chose feats that Dragon shamans are *likely* to have in the very least.
Besides the insane requirements, do you like the abilities of the class?
Re: [PRC] Dragon Aspect Disciple
Would this have any relation to the Dragon Disciple? The rules and the RP ideas behind the seem pretty different, but I'm not sure that making a class with almost the same name as a core one might not be advisable... too much potential confusion.
Re: [PRC] Dragon Aspect Disciple
The name can be easily changed. That's not a big issue. I just want to make sure the class will do what it is intended to do: Give a lot of options to an underpowered class.
