The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
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So there's a big project in the works called The Blue Book, which is an overhaul of the
Xenoalchemy rules to expand it and make it even more awesome. I thought I might start to get some people excited about it, and so you can expect to be seeing some of these previews as we get closer to the release date! This time, I've got an old class of mine which got a new lease on life with the xenoalchemy rules! This is one of the two new base classes which will be in The Blue Book, joining the xenoalchemist as primary grafters. Without further ado, say hello to my little friend...
Connoisseurs are a rare breed which rejects the rules and expectations of civilized humanity and indulge in that most forbidden practice: cannibalism. The master of a hundred humanoid tastes, connoisseurs gradually learn to augment themselves with the knowledge and history contained in their favourite foods. No taboo is too taboo for a connoisseur, who makes use of occult arts which might have been best left forgotten in order to consume the very essence of his prey. And when I say essence, I mean that he eats people and then grows pieces of them on himself. It's pretty gross, not gonna lie.
Game Rule Information
Hit Die: d6.
Skill Points at First Level: (2 + Int modifier) x 4
Skill Points at Each Additional Level: 2 + Int modifier
Class Skills: A connoisseur's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Cha), Craft (all) (Int), Handle Animal (Cha), Heal (Wis), Intimidate (Cha), Knowledge (local) (Int), Knowledge (nature) (Int), Listen (Wis), Profession (Wis), Ride (Dex), Spot (Wis), Survival (Wis), and Swim (Str).
The Connoisseur
{table="head"]Level|BAB|Fort|Ref|Will|Special|Gourmand Level
1st|+0|+2|+0|+0|Favourite feast, gourmand, swallowed skill|1
2nd|+1|+3|+0|+0|Succulent spell (0th), thrill of the hunt|1
3rd|+2|+3|+1|+1|Feeding frenzy|1
4th|+3|+4|+1|+1|Feat of the flesh, succulent spell (1st)|1
5th|+3|+4|+1|+1|Favourite feast|2
6th|+4|+5|+2|+2|Succulent spell (2nd)|2
7th|+5|+5|+2|+2|Devour vitality, secret spice technique|2
8th|+6/+1|+6|+2|+2|Succulent spell (3rd)|2
9th|+6/+1|+6|+3|+3|Devour memories, subsume soul|3
10th|+7/+2|+2|+3|+3|Favourite feast, succulent spell (4th)|3
11th|+8/+3|+3|+3|+3|Feat of the flesh|3
12th|+9/+4|+8|+4|+4|Speed eating champion, succulent spell (5th)|3
13th|+9/+4|+8|+4|+4|Devour luck|4
14th|+10/+5|+9|+4|+4|Succulent spell (6th)|4
15th|+11/+6/+1|+9|+5|+5|Favourite feast|4
16th|+12/+7/+2|+10|+5|+5|Succulent spell (7th)|4
17th|+12/+7/+2|+10|+5|+5|Devour defence|5
18th|+13/+8/+3|+11|+6|+6|Feat of the flesh, succulent spell (8th)|5
19th|+14/+9/+4|+11|+6|+6|Devour form|5
20th|+15/+10/+5|+12|+6|+6|Devour youth, favourite feast, hunger eternal|5
[/table]
Class Features
All of the following are class features of the connoisseur.
A note on the nature of the connoisseur's class features: many of the class features presented below require the consumption of flesh. Although the time required to consume flesh can vary based on the size of the morsel, the assumption in most of the class features is that it requires a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity to eat it. Drawing a morsel from a pocket or something similar is a move action or a free action as normal for the character.
Another note: A connoisseur may not eat her own flesh to activate any of her class features. That's a little too weird, even for me.
Weapon and Armour Proficiency: A connoisseur is proficient with all light armour and simple melee weapons. In addition, the connoisseur is proficient with three martial weapons of her choice to represent her particular hunting style, as well as her natural bite attack. Connoisseurs are not proficient with medium or heavy armour or shields of any kind.
Favourite Feast (Su): The connoisseur develops a taste for the living. Different connoisseurs have different tastes, however. At 1st level, you may select one of the following preferences. When sampling your favourite feast, you gain additional benefits, as described below. You may benefit from your favourite feast a number of times per day equal to 3 + your Constitution modifier. At 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th levels, you may select an additional favourite feast, or gain additional uses per day of a favourite feast which you already have the taste for. You cannot benefit from the same favourite feast twice at the same time, although you can have different feasts active simultaneously.
Any benefit gained from the connoisseur's favourite feast lasts for 1 minute per class level. Activating the benefit of a favourite feast is a swift action used at the same time as the action required to eat the morsel (generally a standard action). If you have more than one favourite feast that could be applied to the same morsel (such as having both the Tongue and Muscle feasts when eating a tongue), you must select one of them to activate upon consuming the flesh.
You may only benefit from a single favourite feast from any particular being. Once you have sampled their flesh, you are compelled to hunt out a more exotic taste to satisfy your continual cravings.
- Blood: When sampling the blood of a victim, you gain temporary hit points equal to 1d10 + 2 per class level.
- Brain: When sampling the brain of a victim, you gain a +1 bonus to Will saves, +1 per 3 class levels.
- Eye: When sampling the eye of a victim, you gain any of the following special abilities that the victim posessed in life: blindsight, darkvision, dweomersight, and low-light vision.
- Heart: When sampling the heart of a victim, you increase the caster level and save DCs of any spells or spell-like abilities you have available by +1, with an additional +1 per 5 class levels.
- Fat: When sampling the fat of a victim, you gain a +1 bonus to Fortitude saves, +1 per 3 class levels.
- Skin: When sampling the skin of a victim, you gain a natural armour bonus of +1, with an additional +1 increase per 3 class levels. This natural armour stacks with any one other source of natural armour.
- Muscle: When sampling the muscles of a victim, you gain a +1 bonus on attack rolls and damage rolls, with an additional +1 per 3 class levels. This bonus increases by +1 when you're using natural weapons.
- Sinew: When sampling the sinew of a victim, you a +1 bonus to Reflex saves, +1 per 3 class levels.
- Tongue: When sampling the tongue of a victim, you gain a +2 bonus on Bluff, Diplomacy, Intimidate, and Gather Information checks, +1 per 2 class levels. You also gain the knowledge of any one language your victim spoke in life, even secret languages such as Druidic or nonverbal languages such as Drow Sign Language. You cannot use this knowledge to qualify for any prestige classes, feats, or other such venues.
Gourmand (Su): As a connoisseur of many tastes, you will learn how to make the most out of every meal, if you know what I mean. You can eat pieces off of any creature which has died within the last minute in order to try and 'salvage' some of them. This requires a full-round action, and allows you to get a full list of grafts which the creature would qualify for (although you need to ask about likely grafts, it's not like the DM is going to look through the entire graft list and catalogue them for you). Once you have decided which monstrous bit you'd like to salvage, you can attempt to activate this ability as a standard action by making a Fortitude save against a DC of 10 + the target's Hit Dice. Success indicates that you can spend the next hour writhing on the ground in agony as you somehow grow a piece of the monster on your body. Failure doesn't hurt you, but ruins any chance of salvaging monstrous material and gives you an upset stomach for the next ten minutes, during which time you can't attempt to grow any more gourmand grafts. Multiple grafters can remove material from a single corpse, but not for the same kind of graft. It's essentially on a first-come first-served basis.
You only have access to level 1 grafts at 1st level, but at 5th level and every four levels thereafter you gain access to an additional level of grafts. Grafts have body slots, but they do not stop someone from wearing a magic item in the same slot. You cannot, however, have two grafts in the same body slot. Furthermore, you can only have at any one time a number of grafts equal to 1 + your Constitution modifier (minimum 1). If your Constitution is reduced so that you can no longer hold your current grafts, then the grafts are rejected, starting with the most recently acquired. Rejected grafts are destroyed, and all benefits they confer are lost. You can only have a single 5th level graft at a time.
You can remove a graft at a later point, either to regrow a mundane body part (treated as a level 0 graft) or to make way for a different graft. This may or may not impose a penalty (see the Graft Rejection section here for more details). Note that the act of growing a gourmand graft is a supernatural effect, but the graft itself is extraordinary in nature unless indicated otherwise in the graft description.
Your xenoalchemist level for gourmand grafts you have attached is equal to your class level. Taking levels in a class which increases your xenoalchemist level can instead advance this class feature, allowing you to advance the highest graft level you can grow and also the xenoalchemist level of your gourmand grafts.
Swallowed Skill (Ex): By devouring the bodies of your enemies, you absorb some of their memories of life. Whenever you consume the flesh of a being with an Intelligence of 3 or greater, you gain 1 skill point that you may immediately allocate as normal into any skill that the being had ranks in. Every level, you can only gain 6 skill points in this way. You may only gain 1 skill rank from any given being, even if you consumes their flesh multiple times.
The connoisseur may also use this ability to permanently learn new languages the victim knew, although learning a language counts as two skill points from her total available for the level.
If the 1st level of connoisseur is your 1st character level as well, you may gain 4 times the number of skill points (24) at 1st level that you would normally be able to. In addition, while you're working towards second level you can drain up to 4 skill points out of a single creature as a special limited-time bonus offer.
If at the end of a level you haven't eaten your full number of potential skill points for the level, you carry unused potential skill points over to your next level. In effect, you never get 'cheated' out of possible skill points.
At every even level you can choose to reassign some swallowed skill points, taking away up to 3 skill points you've already spent and adding 3 to your unlearned pool for this class feature. If after removing skill points you no longer qualify for any feats, prestige classes, or other such venues you have pursued, you lose the relevant features until you again qualify for them.
Succulent Spell (Sp): The true connoisseur may begin to glean arcane power from her victims. Beginning at 2nd level, whenever you consume the flesh of a being that has the ability to cast arcane spells or use spell-like abilities that mimic arcane spells, you may select a single arcane spell the being knew or had prepared (but had not used) of 0th level to discover as a spell-like ability. You may not select a spell that has an expensive material component or XP cost. Once you know this spell, you may use it once per day per point of your Charisma modifier. The save DC for a succulent spell is equal to 10 + the level of the spell + your Charisma modifier.
You may know one 0th level spell at a time. If you later swallow the flesh of a victim with a spell you prefer, you may trade out spell-like abilities. However, changing spells does not refresh your number of uses of this ability for the day.
At 4th, 6th, 8th, 10th, 12th, 14th, 16th, and 18th levels, you gain a new capacity for a spell-like ability, but of a higher spell level, as indicated on the class table. These spell-like abilities follow the same rules as the 0th level spell-like ability you gain at 2nd level. Each of these spell-like abilities may be used once per day per point of your Charisma modifier.
Your caster level for succulent spells is equal to your class level.
Thrill of the Hunt (Ex): At 2nd level, you gain special intuition that allows you to hunt with unfailing speed. You gain the scent special ability and the trapfinding class feature. You may use the Search skill to locate traps with a DC higher than 20 and may use the Disable Device skill to bypass a trap or disarm magic traps. See the rogue class feature on page 50 of the Player's Handbook.
Feeding Frenzy (Su): Connoisseurs are known to go into a feeding frenzy whenever they smell the flesh of a living being. Sort of like sharks, except somewhat more personable. You may enter this state as a free action whenever you succeed on a Survival check to smell a being with your scent ability. While in a frenzy you gain a +4 bonus to your Strength and Dexterity scores, and you also deal an additional 1d6 damage on melee attacks against the target that enraged you, with an additional 1d6 damage per 4 class levels.
This frenzy lasts for a number of rounds equal to 3 + your Constitution modifier, or until you have eaten the flesh of the target enemy, whichever comes first. While under the effects of this frenzy, you are unable to undertake any kind of complicated activity, such as using your succulent spell class feature or making complex skill checks. In addition, you take a -6 penalty to attack rolls against any target that is not the being she has smelled. You can only be in a feeding frenzy against one creature at a time.
While in a feeding frenzy, you also gain a natural bite attack that deals 1d6 damage for a Medium connoisseur. If you deal damage with your bite attack, you may swallow one of the following body parts of the target you attack: blood, fat, skin, muscle, or sinew. Thus, you may use her Favourite Feast class feature, as well as any other class feature that you have access to which requires you to eat flesh, in conjunction with this bite attack.
If you activate your favourite feast class feature while in a frenzy by eating the flesh of the target creature, the numerical bonus provided (if there is one) is increased by +1. You must wait 3 rounds after ending a frenzy to start a new one, or you can spend a full-round action to calm yourself and remove this cooldown period.
Feat of the Flesh (Ex): At 4th level, you gain a special feat slot. Whenever you devours the flesh of a victim, you instantly gleans the knowledge of all of the feats that creature possessed. You may then select any one feat that you meet the prerequisites for, and use this special feat slot to hold it. You gain the benefits of this feat until you select a new feat to replace it. You may use this feat to qualify for prestige classes, feats, and other venues, but if you later lose the feat, you loses all benefits of the prestige class, feat, or other such venues which depended upon it for entry. For more information on losing access to class features, see page 16 of Complete Warrior.
The connoisseur gains an additional special feat slot like this at 11th level and 18th level.
Devour Vitality (Su): By eating the flesh of her foe, a connoisseur of 7th level can channel the life force of her victim. Whenever you eat the flesh of a living being, you gains a number of vitality points equal to the Hit Dice of the creature. Every day you can absorb a number of vitality points equal to twice your Charisma modifier times your class level (2 x Cha x class level). You can channel vitality points you have accumulated at a 1:1 ratio to heal the wounds of yourself or another. This is a standard action that provokes attacks of opportunity, but you can channel any number of accumulated vitality with a single touch.
Secret Spice Technique (Ex): Your knowledge of cannibalistic eating practices is quickly growing. With judicious application of special spices, you can preserve a body to make it easier to eat pieces off of. This requires spices worth 5 gp (and of negligible weight), and takes a move action to perform. You must apply the spices to the body of a creature which died within the last minute, in which case it is preserved as if with a gentle repose effect with a caster level of your class level. More importantly, you can attempt to grow gourmand grafts from the creature beyond the normal time limit, and if you fail on the Fortitude save to grow a graft from it you can attempt additional grafts until you succeed on one (although once you fail on a graft that material is effectively ruined). Other grafters can also remove material from the corpse while the effect persists.
Devour Memories (Su): Beginning at 9th level, a connoisseur may access the memories of her victim when she eats their flesh. You may use this ability once per day per point of your Intelligence modifier as a free action when consuming the flesh of a victim. You learn the victim's surface thoughts as if by the detect thoughts spell, and may learn the answers to up to three questions concerning the past of the victim. These must be simple 'yes/no' questions that you decided upon before eating the flesh. If the creature is dead, you can instead spend one use of this ability to activate the equivalent of a speak with dead spell-like-ability, with a caster level equal to your Hit Dice. The only caveat is that there needs to be something left to eat (squishy bits).
Subsume Soul (Su): Some people think of the soul as a nebulous philosophical quandary. You think it tastes like chicken. Whenever you kill someone with a bite attack, you can choose to devour their soul essentially as if with the trap the soul spell. Instead of a gem the soul is stored inside of you. You can later regurgitate it into a gemstone of applicable size and value, which might be useful since you can only have one soul per class level inside of you at a time. You cannot use this ability to force a planar creature to perform a service for you, since by definition they're dead. If you voluntarily give up a soul you've eaten for resurrection or raising from the dead, the victim incurs no level loss from dying.
Speed Eating Champion (Ex): Connoisseurs inevitably develop such fortitude of stomach that they can swallow down their favourite foods faster than you can say 'bite me'. Starting at 12th level, you don't need to bother spending a swift action to activate the benefits of one of your favourite feasts, but instead it's automatically activated when you eat it.
Devour Luck (Su): Beginning at 13th level, the connoisseur may extract the undiluted fortune from her food of choice. Whenever you consume the flesh of a being with a luck reroll that is unused, you may extract this reroll for yourself as a free action. You may have a number of luck rerolls from this ability at a time equal to your Charisma modifier. You may expend these rerolls on any kind of d20 roll, regardless of the outlets that were available to the victim. For more information on luck rerolls, see Complete Scoundrel. If the victim is still alive when she uses this ability, they lose the luck roll that is devoured by the connoisseur for the day.
If you possess any Luck feats, you can instead choose to burn this devoured fortune to regain two luck rerolls, up to your normal maximum. If you choose to do this you must spend the luck rerolls only in ways normally available to you.
Devour Defence (Su): You know what they say: you are what you eat. Beginning at 17th level, the connoisseur gains the ability to gain the arcane resistance of her victims simply from sampling their flesh. Whenever you swallow the flesh of a being with spell resistance, you may use a free action to gain the same spell resistance yourself. This spell resistance lasts until it has stopped a single effect from targetting you, at which point it ends. If you use this ability again before the first effect has been used, only the higher spell resistance applies going forward.
You can alternatively use this to steal a single kind of energy resistance or immunity, which also lasts until it reduces or eliminates a single attack or effect. You can only have one kind of energy resistance, immunity, or spell resistance stored at a single time, although you can change it if you eat another applicable creature's flesh while the first defence is still active.
Devour Form (Su): At 19th level, the connoisseur gains the ability to use the taste of her enemies to become them. Once per day, when you swallow the flesh of a being, you may choose to transform into the being as if by the shapechange spell. You may remain in this form for up to 1 hour per class level, or until you use a swift action to transform back to your natural form.
Devour Youth (Su): There's a bit of a reason connoisseurs get a bad rap. At 20th level, you have learned how to effectively live forever by stealing the youth from your victims. Whenever you eat a live baby, you may decrease your age by 1d4 years. This can restore physical ability points lost from aging, but has no effect on mental ability point increases; since that is based on experience, the time required to gain these ability increases is calculated from your original age. This ability cannot reduce you to below the minimum adventuring age for your race.
Hunger Eternal (Ex): Your insatiable hunger knows no bounds. Once you have achieved 20th level, many strange and unnatural roads open up to you if you are willing to delve deep enough into madness. All of your feat slots now work like your feat of the flesh class feature. This applies to current feats as well as other feats you gain later, including epic feats. You cannot use one of your pre-epic feat slots to hold epic feats, but you can store epic feats in your actual feat of the flesh slots.
A Special Note: The author mostly does not endorse cannibalism, and urges you to not engage in any kind of activity that a member of this class would enjoy pursuing unless you really want to.
Playing a Connoisseur
"There is no cannibalism in the British Navy. Absolutely none. And when I say "none", I mean there is a certain amount."
If you're going to be playing a fellow who kills people and eats them, you're probably going to have to deal with a certain amount of bad feeling on the part of people who don't like to eat things that can think. Don't worry too much about it, all geniuses are misunderstood in their time. Go ahead and eat those naysayers if it makes you feel better. If you have any kinds of moral issues about eating sapient creatures' faces while they're still alive, I'd suggest a different class. Maybe a druid, so you can turn into a magical pink butterfly and float merrily away. Because this is a class about cutting people up and eating them. Try to get over that.
Anyway, from a game perspective you've got it pretty... SWEET. You're in a super versatile class, which gives you lots and lots of options for customisation. More so than almost any other class in the game (even the factotum), you can get access to damn near any printed ability if you work hard enough at it. Whether you're growing monster powers on your face, stealing people's spells, skills, feats, luck, or whatever, one connoisseur looks vastly different from any other. It's easy to get overwhelmed with options when looking at this class, but take all of the choices as they come. Bear in mind that almost no decision is set in stone, so even if you steal something that ends up not being that useful, you can always snag something else from the next monster. The best advice is to try to eat something from basically every monster you encounter. You never know what useful spell or feat or graft you might be able to salvage from a corpse and twist to your own ends.
In the end, this is a class about taking what the enemy is using and making it your own. If one strategy isn't working, you're very adaptable and able to customise your array of choices to incorporate new strategies or abilities that the enemy is using. You're not only hard to predict, but also very hard to pin down because of your options. Take the time to get familiar with what all you have available at any one time, and remember: an enemy you haven't eaten alive is an enemy wasted!
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
I have to say Kellus, the original connoisseur was a favourite of mine, now you just took it up a notch!
I love what you did to it and the *ahem* flavor behind the crunch (:smalltongue:) works very well. Can't wait to see more of it, and if this is going to be a huge project you can ask me for help. Particularly with races and feats since i specialize in them.
I actually have one in the works already that i just decided I'm going to have the connoisseur or xenoalchemist as a favored class (a parasitic/symbiotic race and have the nickname "body sculpters," inspired by one of their PrCs actually.)
Also, i'd love to see a Connoisseur PrC that uses Welknair's Bloodlines, or even his Blood King class. Possibly even as an ACF rather than a PrC.
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
EdroGrimshell
I have to say Kellus, the original connoisseur was a favourite of mine, now you just took it up a notch!
I love what you did to it and the *ahem* flavor behind the crunch (:smalltongue:) works very well. Can't wait to see more of it, and if this is going to be a huge project you can ask me for help. Particularly with races and feats since i specialize in them.
I actually have one in the works already that i just decided I'm going to have the connoisseur or xenoalchemist as a favored class (a parasitic/symbiotic race and have the nickname "body sculpters," inspired by one of their PrCs actually.)
Also, i'd love to see a Connoisseur PrC that uses
Welknair's Bloodlines, or even his
Blood King class. Possibly even as an ACF rather than a PrC.
Thanks, I'm glad you like it! I've always loved the concept for this class, which was essentially another take on the 'jack of all trades', like the factotum. If you'd like to contribute to The Blue Book feel free to shoot me a PM, I'd love to incorporate more ideas into it. :)
An alternate class feature involving bloodlines would in fact be genius for this thing, I can't believe I didn't think of that! I don't know much about bloodlines, but the Blood King is a fantastic piece of homebrew. I'll see what I can do to provide an option like that in the final product!
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kellus
Thanks, I'm glad you like it! I've always loved the concept for this class, which was essentially another take on the 'jack of all trades', like the factotum. If you'd like to contribute to The Blue Book feel free to shoot me a PM, I'd love to incorporate more ideas into it. :)
An alternate class feature involving bloodlines would in fact be genius for this thing, I can't believe I didn't think of that! I don't know much about bloodlines, but the Blood King is a fantastic piece of homebrew. I'll see what I can do to provide an option like that in the final product!
Once i have the Race done i'll be posting it, but working with you to help make it work better would be great! I'll PM you the details shortly
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
I got to say fate is a funny thing. I remember when I first came across this class is was from someone gestalting it with one of my favorite classes the Ozodrin. It was such a freaky class that I loved it right away. I hate that I didn't bookmark it.
I mention fate because yesterday I read a comic on deviantart Samurai Genji. And the backstory talks about a secret where those that eat the flesh of their fellow man gain the power of a god. In short they have insane strength and apparently fast healing and regeneration.
Fate ends with the fact that you posted this Awesome Class of yours again. Grafts or not is is Awesome. But i agree with Edro. It is awesomer now.
.... Oh crap. I had an idea for feats but after all that complimenting and mental character creations I forgot them. I'll get back after I look at the blood king and Connoisseur again.
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
You know, i think i just found this class's theme song, Mein Teil by Rammstein, which means My Part. It actually has one part where it says "you are what you eat" and it's actually about cannibalism, or at least a mass murderer that was a cannibal.
Just fits so well with this class.
Also, i'd like your opinion on something that i aska lot of DMs, in a gestalt game, would the skill points from Swallowed Skill stack with normal skill points or would they overlap (spend the normal class skills then whatever's left over is the skill points for swallowed skill)?
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Merchant
I got to say fate is a funny thing. I remember when I first came across this class is was from someone gestalting it with one of my favorite classes the Ozodrin. It was such a freaky class that I loved it right away. I hate that I didn't bookmark it.
I mention fate because yesterday I read a comic on deviantart Samurai Genji. And the backstory talks about a secret where those that eat the flesh of their fellow man gain the power of a god. In short they have insane strength and apparently fast healing and regeneration.
Fate ends with the fact that you posted this Awesome Class of yours again. Grafts or not is is Awesome. But i agree with Edro. It is awesomer now.
.... Oh crap. I had an idea for feats but after all that complimenting and mental character creations I forgot them. I'll get back after I look at the blood king and Connoisseur again.
Outstanding, glad you like it! You'll want to pay attention in the next day or so, since the next preview is something I promised someone quite a while ago, a cross ozodrin/connoisseur prestige class. I always intended to do something with the ozodrin since it's so brilliant, but it never quite seemed to jive with the normal xenoalchemist. The connoisseur, on the other hand... >:)
Edro: That song is practically the music that I was listening to when I was writing the class. Nicely done. :D
As for the gestalt question, that's a very good point. I don't normally write extra rules text for variants, but gestalt is popular enough that I should put in a clause about it. Obviously swallowed skill is supposed to replace normal skill points, but in some ways it's even better than normal, since you can hold off on assigning them until you see some of the things you'll need. So if I were DMing something like that, I would recommend choosing at any given level whether to assign the other class's skill points using their class skills, or to go with the connoisseur's setup, whichever you feel like doing at that particular level-up.
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
Now, wait, this class doesn't actually have to eat humanoid creatures, and isn't penalized in any way for choosing to eat non-humanoids, right? It could go around eating lions, and tigers, and behirs and gaining their powers couldn't it?
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
Absolutely. You can (and are encouraged to) eat all kinds of different flesh. That being said, you'll get the most out of your class features if you hunt intelligent prey, since you need a prey with an Int of at least 3 to get skill points from them, and especially if you want things like spells. But as described in the original thread on the first version of this class, the word 'cannibalism' was chosen because there's no really good word for someone who eats intelligent members of other species, since there are no other sentient creatures in the real world, and also because it gets across the taboo nature of the class. But yeah, eat whatever you want!
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
I don't really like the Swallowed Skill feature. It's flavorful and all that, but it's very, very clunky. It also strains credulity.
The Connoisseur is expected to know at least a little bit about food and creatures, and yet it makes a worse cook than a basic Commoner Chef. Worse, you have to eat a lot of creatures to get anywhere near an appropriate number of skill points per level, which sort of sucks because a lot of skills are nice to be able to use in combat.
The solution I would offer is to actually give them a list of class skills along with 2 + Int skill points per level, but then, Swallowed Skill allows them to get up to 6 additional skill points per level from eating creatures (or 24 additional skill points at 1st level). In gestalt that works to give 6 extra skill points per level to classes, but, hey, it's one of your class features, why not.
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Ziegander
I don't really like the Swallowed Skill feature. It's flavorful and all that, but it's very, very clunky. It also strains credulity.
The Connoisseur is expected to know at least a little bit about food and creatures, and yet it makes a worse cook than a basic Commoner Chef. Worse, you have to eat a lot of creatures to get anywhere near an appropriate number of skill points per level, which sort of sucks because a lot of skills are nice to be able to use in combat.
The solution I would offer is to actually give them a list of class skills along with 2 + Int skill points per level, but then, Swallowed Skill allows them to get up to 6 additional skill points per level from eating creatures (or 24 additional skill points at 1st level). In gestalt that works to give 6 extra skill points per level to classes, but, hey, it's one of your class features, why not.
That's actually how a lot of DMs ruled it, spending the standard skill points from a class and then gaining the rest using Swallowed Skill.
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
I understand the eating of intelligent creatures is the main focus of the class. But I just get the feeling that the eating of any creature and gaining strength from them is something very primitive.
Why can't there be an additional bonus, or a class feature, or even a feat along the lines of devouring their 'instincts'/racial skills. I think there should be something for devouring lots of lions, tigers, and bears. Most animals have racial bonuses to skill right? Why not get a skill point from that skill. And it can't exceed the racial bonus of the creature being consumed.
I see a jungle centric Connoisseur living off the creatures around him and becoming more like them without the druid's pansy shapeshifting
EDIT
I just noticed the extra damage during a feeding frenzy and i see 6d6 being a fair amount of damage. Saying that I think maybe a feat that increases the die size would be reasonable. I rationalize it by saying that through your excessive eating your jaws become powerful and more formidable.
I just want to say that despite how blown away I am by all the awesome homebrewing that goes on, it takes me to another level when you start adding feats for the specific classes. Maybe some feats that focus on each of your favorite feasts. Maybe get larger bonuses, or something a little more flavorful. Maybe the eating of muscles could increase your jaw strength. Need more time than the others.
I wish the Connoisseur would have gotten profession cook/craft cooking(?), and profession butcher simply because I keep thinking of good old Hannibal having guests over. But i understand fluff wise that he seem quite driven by his hunger so he might not think of cooking his food instead of just devouring it.
PRCs-could focus on the Favorite feast feats(hopeful) and possibly one that has learned the finer ways of dining and cooking. I think RoC or another veteran homebrew made a cooking DC table a while back and that table could be used to disguise his cooking of people and serving it to others. Maybe so that if the players were in a tough spot and there was nothing to eat but plenty of bodies (last encounter) The Connoisseur/Chef could whip something edible so that it wouldn't make others ill.
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
The Geomancer from Complete Divine has something called Drift that could be used for that actually.
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
Wow, good comments, guys! I wish more of my feedback could be awesome ideas like this!
In order:
Skill Points: Totally a good idea. I like to work within the rules when I can, and I was so caught up with the awesome idea of eating peoples' skill points that I didn't think about going half and half with it. But it makes a ton of sense to keep her at 2 + Int and then have 6 eaten skill points/level. That lets me keep the eating customisation factor as well as give him a fun and flavourful class skill list, and make gestalting less of a headache too! :D
Favourite Feast Feats: Also excellent. I never made any feats for the class the first time since it was a standalone, but I already have about 30 written for the Blue Book. I promise that there will be some in the final product to augment and improve some specific favourite feasts!
Animal-Eating: They totally already can do that! They're focused around eating intelligent creatures, but just off the top of my head they can steal the following things from animals and wild beasts: feats, health, souls, defences, form (shapechange-style) and most importantly grafts! I'm not sure how much more you want them to be able to take! :P
Thanks again for the great feedback! I'm just polishing up the Strange Surgeon and the Nahual tonight, the second preview with them should be up tomorrow!
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Kellus
Animal-Eating: They totally already can do that! They're focused around eating intelligent creatures, but just off the top of my head they can steal the following things from animals and wild beasts: feats, health, souls, defences, form (shapechange-style) and most importantly grafts! I'm not sure how much more you want them to be able to take! :P
I think what he is suggesting is a feat that allows you to use your swallow skill ability with creatures that have an intelligence less than 3, but have it be limited to skills they gain a racial bonus to. For example:
Ingest Instincts
You may now absorb the instinct of creatures you eat as well as memories.
Prerequisite: Swallow Skill
Benefit: When using your swallow skill ability, you may choose to allocate the gained skill point to a skill the consumed creature had a racial bonus to, even if it had no ranks in it. Additionally, you may use your swallow skill ability on creatures with an intelligence of 2 or less, but in this case you may only assign the skill point to a skill the creature had a racial bonus to.
Anyway, I quite like the class, and have been a fan since the original connoisseur. As has been said, the grafts, as well as the extra little abilities just make this class that much better. I look forward to the next preview of the Blue Book, as well as the final version.
Owrtho
Re: The Blue Book Preview No. 1: The Connoisseur!
Just adding this now as it comes to me. Have to read up some more.
PRCs. As i mentioned earlier about a refined eater I was thinking that he could either get more out of his favorite feasts or he can 'dine' on them multiple times, getting the additional bonuses that way. (Feeding Frenzy should be replaced if it has it by something more charasmatic seeing as how this person is a glutton)
On a the other side of the coin i see the Ozodrin/Connoisseur Prc revolving around speed eating. Just imagining tons of mouths devouring flesh, spikes syphoning blood, claws pulling out eyes, is quite an ... interesting sight in my mind. Oh and may treat the mouths as one size large. Maybe give them a special Connoisseur augment Distended Jaw. That way you don't have to pay form points to get a bigger bite, and the connoisseur's racial mouth can be treated one size larger and you can add Form Points into it.
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Oh I was wondering. Is it even possible to 'bite' the brain while the creature is full health and fighting you. I will have to check again but i think all the other areas are a lot easier to get to with your bite attack. What does a critical hit do with a bite attack? Does that mean you got your jaws.
If you make the requirements the mouth feature for the Ozo/Conn Prc does that mean that a Blood King with the Akodrin bloodline with the mouth feature can also enter. That would be an interesting Tri-Class mix seeing as how you were thinking of mixing the Conn with the Blood King as well.
