[3.5] Dustmen PrC - Development, suggestions needed

[Blackjackg]

In Planar Handbook and a few issues of Dragon, the Factions of Sigil were updated with PrCs, but I have not seen one for the Dustmen. So I'm trying to make one.

The Dustmen, in short, believe that life and death are both illusions, that they are essentially the same thing. So they treat undead as basically the same thing as living folk. Kind of. The PrC I'm trying to make would blur the distinction between life and undeath to the benefit of the character. It's not yet formed enough to make a full write-up, but I'll update this post as ideas come together.

I'd like to make the class fairly generic, so that characters could enter it via multiple paths. Something like 3/4 BAB, 1/2 Caster progression. Requirements would be similarly generic. The way I'm conceiving it now, it would work best if the character's race was Non-Undead, but it would be great if we could work up a way for undead to benefit. 8 ranks of knowledge (religion) seems appropriate without being prohibitive, maybe "Ability to Cast Divine Spells" (if I go with this, I'd probably leave out level requirements, so that, say, a rogue with a level of cleric could qualify).

The main slant of the class abilities (beyond the BAB and caster progression) would be two abilities called Lifelike Death and Deathlike Life, each of which would be gained multiple times (in a 5-level progression, twice each, in a 10-level, four times each). They would alternate (e.g. LLD at level 2, DLL at 3, LLD at 4, and so on). They'd both be variable abilities ("each time you gain this ability, choose one of the following effects" kind of deal).

Lifelike Death is abilities that make undead seem more lifelike. Abilities might include: Undead are vulnerable to your sneak attack/skirmish/sudden strike, undead are vulnerable to your critical hits, ignore damage reduction of undead, or choose one spell you can cast: that spell can affect undead as if they were not undead. The ability to Speak With Dead x/day would also fit nicely in this category. Obviously, not all of these abilities are equal in potency, so I'd love suggestions as to how to balance them (my weakest point in design), as well as other ideas for Lifelike Death.

As an alternative to regular caster progression, we could tack on a secondary bonus to each ability. For example, with the spell ability, we could add a "and you gain new spells and an increase to caster level as if you had gained a level in your caster class," or add a sneak attack die when they take the sneak attack one. Abilities could, of course, be taken multiple times.

Deathlike Life makes living creatures more undead-ish. Abilities might include gaining damage reduction, becoming immune to critical hits or sneak attacks, "Choose a creature type from the list of Ranger favored enemies. You may turn or rebuke creatures of that type as if they were undead," or "Choose a spell you can cast that affects undead. Once per day you can cast that spell at a living creature as if that creature were undead." Once again, balance is my weak point, so any suggestions for making the abilities more balanced would be helpful.

Slight aside: I don't want this class to be non-good only, so it would probably work best if undeath is not necessarily evil, or if we could incorporate the Deathless type instead.

The pinnacle ability is Slashing the Veil (working title/Ultima Underworld reference), which allows the character to be neither living nor dead. Mechanically, it means that you can be raised or resurrected without a level loss (this is a departure from the classic Dustmen who, IIRC, could not be raised or resurrected at all), and grants the following ability: 1/day, as an immediate action, you can change your creature type from [your usual] to Undead, or vice-versa, with all the benefits and penalties thereof. So if you start the day as a humanoid and someone sneak attacks you, you can immediately become undead. If you start the day as undead and someone tries to turn you, you can immediately become humanoid. In either case, the effect would probably be mediated by whichever Lifelike Death and Deathlike Life abilities you chose, but still.

Anyway, that's a lot of information in nonstandard format, but I would really appreciate suggestions to make this idea workable. Thanks!

[Djinn_in_Tonic]

This might interest you.

It's not really what you're looking for, but the Twilight of Life, Twilight of Death, and Twilight of Eternity powers seem like something you might be interested in.

[PairO'Dice Lost]

I'd like to make the class fairly generic, so that characters could enter it via multiple paths. Something like 3/4 BAB, 1/2 Caster progression. Requirements would be similarly generic. The way I'm conceiving it now, it would work best if the character's race was Non-Undead, but it would be great if we could work up a way for undead to benefit. 8 ranks of knowledge (religion) seems appropriate without being prohibitive, maybe "Ability to Cast Divine Spells" (if I go with this, I'd probably leave out level requirements, so that, say, a rogue with a level of cleric could qualify).

[...]

As an alternative to regular caster progression, we could tack on a secondary bonus to each ability. For example, with the spell ability, we could add a "and you gain new spells and an increase to caster level as if you had gained a level in your caster class," or add a sneak attack die when they take the sneak attack one. Abilities could, of course, be taken multiple times.

There's a PrC in Complete Champion (whose name I forget at the moment) that basically has separate advancement tracks based on how you qualify--if you meet sneak attack requirements you advance that, if you meet spellcasting requirements you advance that, etc. You could do something along those lines, and then instead of a "pick 1 of X abilities" setup you could have different tracks, which would help you balance the abilities so you couldn't take all of the best ones.