Classes with amusing fluff but awful crunch

[Mike Miller]

I just thought it would be fun for people to discuss some classes and prestige classes that are fun to think about as characters, but actually fall flat when statted.

I nominate Green Star Adept. It is interesting to hunt for this rare metal and slowly turn into a construct, but you end up losing more than you gain.

Also, Blood Magus is pretty neat. It has a unique potion and scroll creation method with some neat abilities (like bursting out of random people's chests), but probably loses out on more than it gains.

[The Viscount]

Alienist is very fun, and one of the few classes to have stuff to do with the Far Realms. That being said, its penalties to skills outweigh the small hp benefit, and it's a summoner that makes you awful at summoning.

[Nifft]

Also, Blood Magus is pretty neat. It has a unique potion and scroll creation method with some neat abilities (like bursting out of random people's chests), but probably loses out on more than it gains.

Blood Magus is a fine 4-level PrC which only suffers if you hallucinate that there are more than 4 levels of it.

It's a solid prefix to a Fleshwarper since it gets you Heal as a class skill, which the prerequisite feat requires.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Mystic Theurge/Psychic Theurge/Cerebremancer: How something so interesting can be so boring. Also applies to Eldritch Knight.

Blighter, too.

[Fynzmirs]

Truenamer!
Do I have to say why?...

[Andry]

Truenamer!
Do I have to say why?...

Because if you play one you might not be able to taste ice cream ever again.

[Doctor Awkward]

-Soulknife.
You are the main protagonist from 90% of all Shonen anime.

Then you try to play one in an actual game...


-Blighter
The horrific embodiment of the worst aspect's of nature, and an interesting look at a side of nature that doesn't often get a lot of attention

And then you try to build a character around the class...


-Occult Slayer
"Magic is inherently destructive to the fabric of nature, and too dangerous a force to be left in the hands of mortals. People who use it must repent and abandon it, or die."
I could write a campaign around this prestige class.

...And then you try to play one in an actual game, and realize a feat chain does this class's job better.

[Mike Miller]

-Soulknife.
You are the main protagonist from 90% of all Shonen anime.

Then you try to play one in an actual game...


-Blighter
The horrific embodiment of the worst aspect's of nature, and an interesting look at a side of nature that doesn't often get a lot of attention

And then you try to build a character around the class...


-Occult Slayer
"Magic is inherently destructive to the fabric of nature, and too dangerous a force to be left in the hands of mortals. People who use it must repent and abandon it, or die."
I could write a campaign around this prestige class.

...And then you try to play one in an actual game, and realize a feat chain does this class's job better.

The Occult Slayer reminded me of the 3.0 Forsaker. The anti-magic fighter character with a passion to destroy all things magical. Except the party will kill you in your sleep for breaking the loot

[Rynjin]

From Pathfinder: Kineticist. Dohohoho!

[Braininthejar2]

Master of Unseen Hand.

Fluff: Be a jedi !

Crunch: Instead of a proper wizard you were supposed to be...

[Acanous]

Ranger, Knight, paladin, rage mage, dwarven defender, consecrated harrier, purple worm knight, effigy master

[ShurikVch]

Alienist is very fun, and one of the few classes to have stuff to do with the Far Realms. That being said, its penalties to skills outweigh the small hp benefit, and it's a summoner that makes you awful at summoning.

And that's why the only true Alienist is in the 3.0 book Tome and Blood - no penalties to skills, and it doesn't make you awful at summoning

Seriously, so many PrCs from the Tome and Blood were downgraded in their 3.5 incarnations (except for the Blood Magus - it got better)

-Blighter
The horrific embodiment of the worst aspect's of nature, and an interesting look at a side of nature that doesn't often get a lot of attention

And then you try to build a character around the class...

Blighter is a fast-progressing 0th-9th divine caster with access to limited wild shape.
If you can't optimize this...
(Well, the major caveat is Deforestation - you wouldn't be able to regain your spells in non-wooded areas)

The Occult Slayer reminded me of the 3.0 Forsaker. The anti-magic fighter character with a passion to destroy all things magical. Except the party will kill you in your sleep for breaking the loot

Funny enough, Forsaker may functioning just fine (and without other player's outrage) with the help of aforementioned Truenamer - with Rebuild Item utterance

[Andor13]

-Soulknife.
You are the main protagonist from 90% of all Shonen anime.

Then you try to play one in an actual game...

The Pathfinder Soulknife is a lot better, but yeah. I never did grasp why the 3.x designers thought "Let's design a class that does literally nothing but fight, and then give it medium BAB so at best it's built in magic weapon will let it barely keep up with a fighter with a club."

Master of Many Forms is my vote. I want to love the class. It does everything it says it will do. But unless you make some really whacky entry, what you're really doing is abandoning T1 spell casting for slightly better wild shape. Did you dump stat int?

[daremetoidareyo]

Reaping mauler. It can't grapple worth a poop

[Rynjin]

The Pathfinder Soulknife is a lot better

I enjoy that you can be a truly Wis SAD Soulknife in Pathfinder. Wis to AC, attack, damage, and Manifesting.

[razorback]

Edit - Wrong thread.

[Falontani]

Hexblade - cursed knight that blends forsaken magic and martial might
Osteomancer - a mage that uses his own bones as a weapon
Cerebrex - a wizard who's brain has been fully unlocked

[Mike Miller]

Ranger, Knight, paladin, rage mage, dwarven defender, consecrated harrier, purple worm knight, effigy master

Wow, how did I forget Dwarven Defender? That should have been number 1.

Arcane Archer is another attempt to blend martial with magic that falls flat.

[Zaq]

Blighter is a fast-progressing 0th-9th divine caster with access to limited wild shape.
If you can't optimize this...
(Well, the major caveat is Deforestation - you wouldn't be able to regain your spells in non-wooded areas)

It's fast-casting, but without shenanigans like level-draining away your HD or using the past life of an elan or a hellbred or something (and make no mistake, those are shenanigans indeed), you're going to have 5 or more dead levels with no class features. (And don't forget that "ex-Druid 5" can't qualify because of the BAB requirement, so you need at least one more level before you get in.) Basically you've got 5 uninteresting RHD (not literally RHD, but close to it). This is way worse than, like, Ur-Priest, which you can staple to an interesting early build. And then since you can't enter before ECL 7, you're behind the curve for spell levels until at least ECL 14, when you have 0 8th level spells per day (hope you've got all the WIS-boosting stuff you wanted) but a normal Druid only has 7ths. Boy, that's some fast progression! You'll have 9ths (well, 0 9ths) for two whole levels before an actual Druid would, which isn't much when you consider that the Blighter list is actually weirdly tiny and constrained. I'd rather be a Druid with 8ths like Whirlwind, Brilliant Aura, and Reverse Gravity than a Blighter at the same level who maybe gets Implosion once per day if you've got enough WIS. No spontaneous summoning, either.

So you've got an awful donut hole in the middle of your build where you're arguing that 3 level 1 spells and 0 level 2 spells per day (none of which are even encounter-enders like Glitterdust) is totally level-appropriate at ECL 8 (with 5 or more dead HD), you don't have any real utility, and your high-level spells aren't exactly so great that it's worth the effort to get them early. Add in the completely insane deforestation requirement, and to be honest, I'm really not seeing how great your fast progression is. There's honestly a lot of levels where I'm not seeing your utility vastly outstrip that of, say, an intelligently played Rogue. Your spells aren't nothing, but they're also not all they're cracked up to be.

(Just to add insult to injury, Undead Wild Shape is spell-like rather than supernatural, so it provokes AoOs and also can be dispelled. I wonder if there are any shenanigans to be done with that, though?)

[Acanous]

Reaping mauler. It can't grapple worth a poop

Hahaha I forgot about that one

[Draconium]

Have we mentioned Dragon Disciple and Dragon Shaman yet? I feel like we should. I love the fluff of these classes. Following the example of dragonkind to gain power while slowly twisting your body to become more dragon-like makes for such an interesting character arc. But both of these classes really kind of suck at it. Dragon Disciple requires spellcasting to get in, but doesn't advance it at all, and even going in with a mostly-melee-mundane build tends to be less effective than just going straight mundane, while Dragon Shaman is basically a worse Marshal with a breath weapon. Not to mention it just feels... bland.

[KarlMarx]

I'm suprised nobody's mentioned Monk yet.

Or Ranger.

They're broader archetypes of course, but there's still the emblematic Merry Men. Just for once I want to have Robin Hood and co. done simply!

[rrwoods]

Have we mentioned Dragon Disciple and Dragon Shaman yet? I feel like we should. I love the fluff of these classes. Following the example of dragonkind to gain power while slowly twisting your body to become more dragon-like makes for such an interesting character arc. But both of these classes really kind of suck at it. Dragon Disciple requires spellcasting to get in, but doesn't advance it at all, and even going in with a mostly-melee-mundane build tends to be less effective than just going straight mundane, while Dragon Shaman is basically a worse Marshal with a breath weapon. Not to mention it just feels... bland.

Thank god for dragonfire adept

[Kelb_Panthera]

Reaping mauler. It can't grapple worth a poop

Easy fix there; swap clever wrestling and improved grapple as prerequisite and bonus feat. Pretty sure their current positions are an editing error anyway.

[cheetobenito]

Marshal, Paladin (in my experience), Ninja, Swashbuckler (until you get to Daring Outlalw), Warmage, Lurk, Shugenja, and Soulborn. All have great ideas behind them, but absolutely HORRIBLE mechanics. I usually allow my players to gestalt Marshal, Paladin, Fighter, Swashbuckler, and Soulborn with with another fairly weak class to balance it out.

[frogglesmash]

I'd like to nominate Acolyte of the Skin.

[Remuko]

I'm suprised nobody's mentioned Monk yet.

came to say this.

[Bavarian itP]

I'm suprised nobody's mentioned Monk yet.

Probably because the monk has terrible fluff and terrible crunch.

[Eldariel]

Wow, how did I forget Dwarven Defender? That should have been number 1.

Arcane Archer is another attempt to blend martial with magic that falls flat.

Arcane Archer as a two-level class isn't entirely unsalvageable. It has very rough entry requirements and it gets one rather strong, unique ability though at the cost of two spell levels, but a Sublime Chord build can hide the lost levels between the main class and the PRC resulting in no net loss. But yes, what WotC was thinking not giving it any casting progression when its literally only worthwhile class feature is all about making your spells better is beyond me. Again, 3.5 update broke the +1 arrows thing since it used to stack with weapon enhancement. Of course, the other class features are trash regardless. I suppose you could combine Arrow of Death and Phase Arrow to make the 1/day standard action things do something but then you run into the fact that the save DC is flat 20. And what is Hail of Arrows even doing as a part of this class?

Easy fix there; swap clever wrestling and improved grapple as prerequisite and bonus feat. Pretty sure their current positions are an editing error anyway.

Well, it still sucks as a grappler simply because it gains next to no improvements to the core check itself over 5 levels (a Totemist does it so much better) and its abilities are all slow and often largely superfluous anyways. It doesn't fix any of the core problems with grapple (freedom of movement, huge monsters eating your face with raw numbers, being flat-footed outside the grapple, doing little damage/killing enemies slow) and doesn't give you much you care about. So even without the "bug" it's a pretty huge letdown.

[Der_DWSage]

I'll throw a little more Pathfinder into the ring-the Oozemorph.

I want to play as a blobby slimeball that makes all kinds of weird and whacky weapons with protoplasm, and give people hugs of death as they turn into macabre fruit chunks in my adventurer Jello. Is that so wrong?

But the main draw of the class is supposed to be the drawback, as Jello can't use any items, loses all forms of movement (Including base land speed, depending on who you ask) and can only participate in casual conversations for a few hours a day. In return for all this, you get...Beast Shape 2 and 4 natural attacks at 15th level. You lose out on AC for DR/Slashing which 2/3 of the bestiary uses, and finally, you get no natural acid.

2/10, only the art gives it a point.