Request a Homebrew: Thread 2!

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Yesssss PrC requests. I need to warm up my brewing muscles for the PrC contest, so I'll tackle these.

C 1026
This doesn't need to be a PrC. You can hire experts and artificers with enough gold (or the use of charm and dominate spells). Find ones with your desired craft skills and hire/brainwash them.

C 1025
There are some major conceptual and mechanical problems that we need to tackle before I can start drafting anything here. What I need from you is your (or your player's) thoughts on how to deal with these:

• P1: Flexibility is a Huge Dumpster: Any kind of animation magic comes with obnoxious flexibility. If you give someone free reign over all monsters ever made, you get stuff like the artificer or kailea the blue mage. In order to prevent abuse, there should be some way to limit the class's flexibility:
  
  • S1a: You could go the sandshaper route and only allow a certain list of creations. In this case, the magic painter would only be able to paint/summon certain creatures, which puts a hard limit on his flexibility
  • S1b: You could go the route of the summon spells, and just let your player pick from the SNA/SDA/SM/SU lists. It will be less work (and it'll probably be a bigger list), and your player will probably feel less gypped.
  • S1c: You could alternatively have the player learn certain creatures a la the questellan, eidetic wizard, or erudite. He memorizes monsters every time he gains a level, and can make those monsters and only those monsters. This feels more organic and takes work off your shoulders, but its also much easier to abuse and increases his chance of picking crappy monsters (like basilisks that accidentally kill the party while walking)
  • S1d: A fusion of S1a and S3a is also possible. Give him limited access to whatever he wants, and supplement that with a core list of paintable beasts.
• P2: Summoning Comes in Many Forms: Summoning is a flavored version of proxy fighting, which comes in three mechanical niches. You (and your player) need to know which niche he is going to fill, because those three niches are balanced in totally different ways.
  
  • S2a (Cohorts): One type of proxy-fighting is just having a companion, like the PF Summoner's Eidolon, or the Druid's Animal Companion. It's a proxy-fighter that's almost an entire character in its own right. The Magic Painter would be only allowed to have 1 active paint monster at a time, but that monster would fight in every combat with level-appropriate stats and abilities.
  • S2b (Packs): Another type of proxy-fighting is controlling huge hordes of creatures. Necromancy is the most common example, but the magic painter can totally paint a swarm of rats or a hundred faceless soldiers. The Magic Painter would have some sort of metric that described how large and how strong his horde could be (like, you can have 100 level 1 warriors or 50 level 2 warriors). He'd get aura boosts to make the attacks level-appropriate, and defenses that prevent them from falling down to a single fireball.
  • S3b (Toolkit): This is the proxy-fighting most summoners use. You get lists of monsters that you can throw out. They're basically glass cannons, with hard immunities and level-appropriate attacks, but if they get smacked once or twice they're dead. This lets you mix up your attacks, and the flavor is best-suited to pulling paintings out of your backpack and throwing them on the ground like pokeballs.
• P3: Free Items, Just Add Paint: Another big problem that crops up with "I paint it and its real" is the idea that the painter can make whatever h wants. He can paint catapults faster than most people can craft them, and he can paint forests faster than any plant will every grow. This leads to him being the master of utility, especially if you let him make things with magical or material value.
  
  • S3a: Put a gold and time limits on his creations. This turns his work into alchemy, where he spends time to transfer Xgp of paint into Xgp of materials. Rarer things are more likely to be painted, because the time required is fixed.
  • S3b: Require / consome the material during creation. The material component means he won't be making adamantine unless he's got a supply to burn. Complicated things are more likely to be painted, and the Magic Painter will be more likely to have a pack animal to carry his many pounds of material.
  • S3c: Make the items fake. Choose some material (like wood, ice, or sand) and make everything a colored version of that. Swords are silver wood. This is the least exciting of them all, but it guarantees that the player only makes mechanical things.