[3.5] Has anyone had any experience with the Base Class: Master?

[Equinox90]

I've recently joined a campaign and after our first month of games, its been revealed to us that our GM has us on a storyline track but that the world he built is malleable and we are supposed to actually persist and exist in it. As in, we are allowed to do basically whatever we want within reason. We are only 3 and a half levels in but we were presented with a situation to get a sort of "Bunker" to work as a base, assuming we spend the resources to try and make it private.

After learning all this I suddenly wish I had known this in advance so I could have taken the chance to play the little known class: Master from Dragonlance.

This class lets you be a Master Craftsman, Performer, Professional, or Sage. Its basically a PC version of the Expert NPC class. But it feels so flavorful and unique to me. I want to try a Master Professional as it gets a Cohort at level 4 (like leadership) and then gains followers at level 6 or 7, like leadership. But it in no way says it replaces leadership. So I was hoping to make a "Guild Master" character if my main is to ever die or retire. With a horde of underlings maintaining the keep and crafting for our party. I know there are definitley better ways to do this but I really want to make this class work.

I was thinking of going into the Dungeon Lord PRC.

Any thoughts on this obscure class?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Dungeon Lord looks borderline useless for an adventurer. Literally none of the abilities (except the Leadership bonus, I guess) are useful if you leave your home base, which I assume will happen with some regularity. Maybe an option for one of your minions, though.

I'm not familiar with Master, and I can't find anything about it online, but from what you describe, it sounds like you're basically playing an Expert with double Leadership? In which case you're really playing three sub-powered characters, the Expert and two ECL-2 cohorts. Which is absolutely something you need to discuss with your DM, because it'll almost certainly make their life more complicated in some way-- either because you're playing three characters simultaneously, or because you're only playing one guy who's rather underpowered.

If you do go Master, and it has the Expert's all-skills-as-class-skills bit, you'll probably want to use Iaijutsu Focus as your main offensive tool, seeing as it's a Cha-based, skill-based source of bonus damage. It's not good, and it'll take a lot of work to make function, but it doesn't sound like your character would have much else going for them.

As a more-effective leader-y option, perhaps look at Orc Warlord? Three levels and the prereq feat grant you an impressive number of followers (At 8th level you could easily have 40+ minions), along with what certainly looks like at-will Inspire Courage. Use Marshal, perhaps, for entry, grab some of the usual Inspire Courage boosters (Badges of Valor, Song of the Heart, etc) and turn your horde (and allies) into something truly fearsome.

[OldTrees1]

Dungeon Lord is a very flavorful prestige class that does not help you at all outside your Dungeon. There are some cases where I feel I can spend 3* levels on flavor without being a detriment to my team, but there are other cases where doing so would be a detriment to my team.

*The Dungeon Lord class's average value per level peaks at 3rd level.

[Equinox90]

The base class can be found on Page 20 of War of the Lance. A dragonlance supplement. Our GM is okay with having multiple people, as long as we keep track of all of the negatives for running such a venture. For example, he's strict about crafting time and costs for constructs, homonculus, and other such things. So he would likely require that we find a stable way to feed and support any horde of minions we keep at base.

The idea of the character would be that of a Party Buffer and enemy debuffer, bringing 2 decent Cohorts into combat with me, giving me a non-useless melee character but providing quality protection and staffing for our home base.

To give you a quick rundown of the benefits of Master: Professional.


Level 1 - Gain standard action -1 Debuff to Attacks, Saves, Skills, and Ability Checks for Charisma number of rounds. Save is Bluff vs Sense Motive. Its not a spell and works on anything with 3+ Int.

Level 4 - Effectively get Leadership but it only applies to Cohorts and your Leadership value is your skill ranks in profession + Charisma. So my Leadership level would be roughly 11 at level 4. I would still be limited to a level 2 Companion however, due to how leadership operates.

Level 7a - Effectively gain leadership again but only for Followers and they have to be Experts. Same leadership rules as above. or I can instead grab a knack I will explain bellow.

Level 7b - Gain a second focus (Master Performer): Now I can buff my team as a full round action for +1 to Attacks and Skill Checks for Charisma number of rounds.

Its not perfect but its an interesting start. Looking to expand it and make it more useful. Trying to find flavor, we are not running in an optimized cheese campaign.

[Grod_The_Giant]

It just... doesn't look like it'll do that good a job of buffing or debuffing-- a +1 or -1 isn't worth much of note, especially with restrictions. You'll probably want to look for more bonuses.

• The Draconic Aura feat (Dragon Magic) lets you project an aura, though I don't think most of them are particularly strong. If you have the Dragonblooded subtype, it scales. Double Draconic Aura lets you project a second.
• Shape Soulmeld (Lucky Dice) + Open Least Chakra (Hands) (Magic of Incarnum) lets you project a +1 bonus to a variety of things as a swift.
• Imperious Command (Drow of the Underdark) is the basis for many good fear builds, making foes cower-- fear in general is an effective debuffing technique. Pairs well with Dreadful Wrath (Player's Guide to Faerun) for Frightful Presence, and Never Outnumbered (Complete Scoundrel) for multi-target intimidation.
• Bind Vestige (Focalor) + Improved Bind Vestige (both Tome of Magic) give you a save-debuffing aura.
• Legendary Leader (Heroes of Battle) is a nice PrC; it gives you access to two "Commander Auras," some of which are decent, along with some other fun bits like save bonuses, Command as a SLA, and immunity to fear for your followers.
• A Marshal (Miniatures Handbook) dip always help; Motivate Dex is great for leading people into battle and sneaking around outside the fight, and Motivate Str is useful for tripping and the like.
• A Bard dip helps; you could follow it into something like War Chanter (Complete Warrior) easily enough.

[Equinox90]

Yeah probably. I was just hoping it could work. I do like the Orc Warchief PRC. Maybe do a Barbarian/Marshal into Orc Warchief. Should give good bonuses for having a horde of thralls. I just won't have many smart thralls lol!