[3.5 PrC] The Greywalker [P.E.A.C.H., please!]

[JustineSane]

The Greywalker

"I have been where no one wants to go, but we'll all end up there, someday."
~Harper, human Greywalker

When we die, we don't come back. Everyone knows that. Everyone also knows there are exceptions to every rule. The Greywalker is one such exception.

Having come near to death (or having actually died) and returned to the land of the living, the Greywalker is... changed. She can see things most normally cannot see, and those things can see her, too. But, she does have a few tricks to help her deal with her newfound "friends".

Entry Requirements
Base Attack Bonus: +5.
Feats: Font of Life (from Heroes of Horror), Iron Will.
Special: Must have had a near-death experience (must have been brought to negative hp and then subsequently treated and healed without actually dying, or must have been killed and brought back from the dead.)

Class Skills
The Greywalker's class skills (and the key ability for each skill) are Bluff (Cha), Concentration (Con), Diplomacy (Cha), Gather Information (Cha), hide (Dex), Intimidate (Cha or Str), Knowledge (history), Knowledge (local), Knowledge (religion), Knowledge (the planes) (all Int), Listen (Wis), Move Silently (Dex), Search (Int), Sense Motive (Wis), Spellcraft (Int), Spot (Wis), & Survival (Wis).
Skill points at each level: 6 + Int modifier.

Hit Die: d8.

{table=head]Level|BAB|Fort Save|Ref Save|Will Save|Special

1st|

+0

|

+0

|

+0

|

+2

|Greysense I, Greyshroud

2nd|

+1

|

+0

|

+0

|

+3

|Greysword (2d6)

3rd|

+2

|

+1

|

+1

|

+3

|Greysense II

4th|

+3

|

+1

|

+1

|

+4

|Greysense III

5th|

+3

|

+1

|

+1

|

+4

|Greysense IV, Greysword (3d6), Walk the Grey (1/day)

6th|

+4

|

+2

|

+2

|

+5

|Deathproof

7th|

+5

|

+2

|

+2

|

+5

|Greysense V, Walk the Grey (3/day)

8th|

+6

|

+2

|

+2

|

+6

|Greysword (5d6)

9th|

+6

|

+3

|

+3

|

+6

|Greysense VI

10th|

+7

|

+3

|

+3

|

+7

|Greysense VII, Walk the Grey (at will)[/table]

Weapon Proficiencies: The Greywalker gains no new weapon or armor proficiencies.

Greysense (Sp): Having knocked on Death's door, the Greywalker becomes sensitive to things which most people are not usually able to see. At 1st level, the Greywalker can use see invisibility, as the spell (caster level equal to the character's Greywalker levels plus any other arcane caster levels) 3 times per day.
At 3rd level, usage increases to 5 times per day.
At 4th level, the Greywalker is now considered to be constantly under the effects of the deathwatch spell with a range of detection equal to the Greywalker's normal range of vision, but cannot tell if a creature is dying or near death (the Greywalker can only tell if a creature is dead, undead, living, or a construct.)
At 5th level, the Greywalker can also use the psionic power sensitivity to psychic impressions once per day, with a manifester level equal to the character's levels in Greywalker.
At 7th level this increases to 3 times per day, and see invisibility changes to true seeing.
At 9th level, the Greywalker can now use sensitivity to psychic impressions 5 times/day.
At 10th level, true seeing becomes permanent.

Greyshroud (Su): Pulling on the energy of the Grey, the Greywalker can buffer herself from supernatural attacks. She gains her Wisdom modifier as an enhancement bonus to AC versus any supernatural attacks and spells & spell-like abilities used by supernatural creatures* - this bonus applies also as a DC modifier if the ability does not normally attack AC, or as a modifier to any ability check or save made to resist such attacks.

Greysword (Su): Harnessing the power of the Grey, the Greywalker can form a melee weapon of pure Grey energy, which functions as a ghost touch greatsword, although the weapon can appear as any simple or martial melee weapon the Greywalker desires. She is automatically proficient with this weapon, and the base damage done by the weapon increases to 3d6 at 5th level, and to 5d6 at 8th level. This weapon uses the Greywalker's Wisdom modifier to determine any bonuses to hit or additional damage (instead of Strength or Dexterity), and has a critical threat range of 20/x3. Creating the weapon is a move-equivalent action, dispelling the weapon is a free action. If the Greywalker is disarmed or lets go of the weapon, the weapon instantly disappears.

Walk the Grey (Sp): The Greywalker can now travel through the Ethereal plane to reach a destination. She can use ethereal jaunt as the spell, once per day at level 5, then 3 times per day at level 7, and finally at will at level 10.

Deathproof (Ex): At 6th level, the Greywalker can start to worry a little less about dying. She gains the Diehard feat for free, even if she does not meet the prerequisites, and the negative hit point range is increases to -19. Also, if the Greywalker does actually die, she gets a percentage chance equal to her Survival skill modifier plus her Constitution modifier to avoid losing any levels when brought back from the dead. Along with this resistance to death, she also stops gaining any negative effects from aging and she quadruples her maximum life expectancy, although physically she does continue to age at a quarter the normal rate for her race. At 8th level, the Greywalker gains immunity to energy drain and negative level effects.

*for clarification purposes, supernatural creatures include creatures with the Dragon, Fey, Magical Beast, Outsider, or Undead types, and/or the Extraplanar, Incorporeal, or Shapechanger subtypes.

[Pyromancer999]

So far as I can tell, it seems to be balanced. However, while the premise of the PrC seems sound, the name and emphasis on grey in the class features don't really fit, or so I think.

[JustineSane]

It's kinda like the place between here and the "Other Side" - it's the common name for the Astral Plane in my campaign, based on the Harper Blaine "Greywalker" book series by Kat Richardson (another Anita Blake-esque setting, minus the eroticism and with more emphasis on the P.I. work.) The name can be changed to reflect whatever the DM du jour wants it to.
I was winging it with the requirements - I feel there should be a skill req or a different feat, but I can't think of any that would apply. I thought a minimum in survival might work, but that would restrict the class too much to a select few.

[Satyrus]

As a disclaimer I am not familiar with the Greywalker series at all so if I'm totally off the mark of what you wanted to do I claim ignorance.

For the requirements I'm not sure what the purpose of the Toughness feat is except to make the class a little more difficult to get into. If you the book heroes of horror I think the Font of Life feat might fit nicely against some of the supernatural creatures.

Greysense: First question, as written the Greywalker can see all invisible creatures, including those under the effect of a spell that are not supernatural. Was this intended?

Second question, does the greywalker make the check to identify a supernatural being period or just the type? Because as written now it seems like a greywalker would immediately know something was up with a lycanthrope even if they were in a fully human form. I don't know if that was your intention.

Greyshroud: Seems fine except for the thing about doubling the bonus at 5th level, that seems a bit much considering that it's not too difficult to boost ability scores at later levels. With the other stuff at first level you might risk a level dip for the ability to see invisible creatures, and a weapon that can hit incorporeal creatures.

Greysword: Rather than saying it can harm noncorporeal creautures just say it has the ghost touch property which does exactly that. Rather than increasing the damage with a flat +2 maybe advancing the base damage would be better (3d6, 4d6, 6d6). Also can it crit and if so what is the multiplier and range? I'd suggest 20/x3.

Grey Touch: Again, just say they apply the ghost touch property to weapons they wield. You say ignore damage reduction did you mean just for incorporeal creatures (which I don't think ever have any DR) or all creatures (too much). Instead to keep the theme of supernatural creatures as you've defined it keep the ghost touch and allow them to ignore DR of supernatural creatures (mostly outsiders and lycanthropes). And without some change to the greysword it seems that this ability kind of makes it useless as you could just get a better magical weapon and it still gets ghost touch for free.

Walk the Grey: Seems fine the way it is to me.


Hope that's helpful!

[JoshuaZ]

There's a typo in the table in level 4 - missing h in "Greytouc"

It's kinda like the place between here and the "Other Side" - it's the common name for the Astral Plane in my campaign, based on the Harper Blaine "Greywalker" book series by Kat Richardson

It fits this pretty well. (And those books are pretty fun).

A few minor comments. The PrC is ok as of right now but is a bit limited and a bit combat focused. The following suggested abilities help a little bit (and they are directly but hopefully not too directly inspired by the abilities Harper has in the books):

1. I'd include spellcraft as a class skill so they can recognize the influence of magic more easily.

2. Give them an ability to see into the past? Possibly something that is su, usable some number of times daily that duplicates the Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions power?

Also, agree with most of the suggestions by Satyrus above.

[JustineSane]

Changes changed and edits edited - please reP.E.A.C.H. - a couple new features added (after I consulted with the nature of the planes :P ) and a few taken out.

[JustineSane]

Clarified supernatural creatures and a few other things - anything else?

[Satyrus]

Looks pretty good to me.

The spell is See invisibility though rather than see invisible.

I don't know what Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions does but if it's like a sensing psionics thing like it sounds like it should be fine.

The only weird thing is the Deathproof capstone ability. I've never seen anything like it and it intrigues me but adding the Survival skill modifier to the percent of stabilization could be abused easily. Skills checks are easy to boost very high and it wouldn't be difficult for a character almost certain to stabilize. If that was the point it's fine.

On the flip side though, as you get higher in level the chance of landing exactly between -1 and -9 shrink a lot. In most cases it probably wouldn't come into play very often.

[JustineSane]

The spell is See invisibility though rather than see invisible.

Fixed.

I don't know what Sensitivity to Psychic Impressions does but if it's like a sensing psionics thing like it sounds like it should be fine.

It's SRD, but otherwise is in Expanded Psionics Handbook p. 131. It allows a user to sense any intense, emotionally-charged occurrences that happened in the area in the past.

The only weird thing is the Deathproof capstone ability. I've never seen anything like it and it intrigues me but adding the Survival skill modifier to the percent of stabilization could be abused easily. Skills checks are easy to boost very high and it wouldn't be difficult for a character almost certain to stabilize. If that was the point it's fine.

On the flip side though, as you get higher in level the chance of landing exactly between -1 and -9 shrink a lot. In most cases it probably wouldn't come into play very often.

It is supposed to be really easy to not die, but I haven't thought of any other mechanics that would keep this ability viable at higher levels. Any suggestions?

[Lix Lorn]

Supernatural creatures really should include fey and magical creatures. In fact, pretty much everything other than humanoids, plants, animals and maybe monstrous humanoids.

For the last ability, amybe they have a survival% chance of not losing a level from raise dead?

[JustineSane]

Thanks, Lix. Duly noted and agreed with. Changes are in!

[Satyrus]

Looks good to me. The only thing that caught my eye was in Deathproof where you continue to age but don't recieve negative penalties. So you would gain the positive effects as written but with them aging slowly and over the course of a campaign it shouldn't make much of a difference, especially since the class doesn't advance spellcasting.

Are there other ideas from the Greywalker book series that might fit as classes, it seems like an interesting world.

[JustineSane]

Looks good to me. The only thing that caught my eye was in Deathproof where you continue to age but don't recieve negative penalties. So you would gain the positive effects as written but with them aging slowly and over the course of a campaign it shouldn't make much of a difference, especially since the class doesn't advance spellcasting.

Are there other ideas from the Greywalker book series that might fit as classes, it seems like an interesting world.

In the books the Greywalker has sort of a nine lives type ability - the main character meets another Greywalker who appears to be in his late 50's but is chronoligically about 170 or so years old - he explains that they will come back from death as long as their bodies are pretty much intact, but this can only happen a certain unknown number of times. It is implied that the Greywalker instinctively "knows" when they are on their last life. I was going to make this ability functiono like a d-whatever roll number of times, but I thought this extra pseudostat would be too much trouble to keep track of and keep secret from the player until they only have one left, so I just gave them longevity & the ability to keep their physical attributes intact.

I didn't really see any other unique enough classes that would warrant their own separate write-ups - mostly just a bunch of specialist wizards and variant vampires and stuff.

[Moose Man]

sounds akin to the supernaturalists in the Eoin Cofler book, The Supernaturalist.

exept more cool

[Land Outcast]

It is supposed to be really easy to not die, but I haven't thought of any other mechanics that would keep this ability viable at higher levels. Any suggestions?

Well... if it's "really easy to not die" there's always the Diehard feat...
Sure is way better than Deathproof in the "not-dying" department; you could still keep the Survival bonus to avoid losing a level after death.

[JustineSane]

...there's always the Diehard feat...

I didn't even think of that, thanks!

[Lix Lorn]

Diehard is generally considered a TERRIBLE feat.

[JustineSane]

Hey, that's why it's free! (And I bumped up the dying range a bit, plus the extras with Deathproof)

[Land Outcast]

You're welcome! I quite like how the point the class has reached.

Diehard is generally considered a TERRIBLE feat.

Hehe, it is terrible... [flashback=his first D&D session][flashback/] unless you're a first/third level human wizard who needs to survive.

But yes, it is one of those sad cases of feats which not only don't escalate at all with characters, but also their bonus becomes negligible.

[tangent]
In my game I've added, as a benefit to Diehard, a once per day ability which prevents the next (ECL*2) damage you'd recive... it's made it more popular, particularly amongst rangers[/tangent]

[JustineSane]

I like how it has progressed as well. Seven heads are definitely better than one. (oh great, now I have Profit of Doom in my head! Of ten horns and seven heads, count your fingers and the continents... RIP, Peter, we miss you and love you! :*( )

[Sneaky Weasel]

This class is very cool. Nice abilities, and a great theme to it. Someone who refuses to let death take them. And the names are cool, 'Walk the Grey' sounds better than just 'Ethereal Jaunt'. Nice work.

[thereaper]

My only question is, what is this class actually giving you, other than flavor? It doesn't advance casting, it doesn't have full BAB (or anything especially melee-friendly besides the greatsword), and it doesn't have the skill list or skill points for a skillmonkey (which is kind of sad, because the sensory and movement would be great for a skillmonkey, it would result in a very Silverclawshift horror vibe).