GitP Prestige Class Contest Chat Thread

[dman11235]

Alrighty then! The new format is:

Submissions from the 10th to the 1st, voting from the 1st to the 10th. No 25 day creation time, I know you guys can handle 20 days.

[Owrtho]

so does unarmed include natural attacks?

Owrtho

[boomwolf]

Fair question. I'd like to know that as well.

Does unarmed also counts magical touch attacks?

Because, if unarmed is only the pure unarmed attacks, then its quite restrictive and its fairly covered up completely by existing classes.

[Bhu]

AN INVADER ZIM QUOTE!!

I somehow must do a class for this...

[dman11235]

Unarmed is unarmed strikes. Did I not use that term in the description? I'll have to edit if I didn't...

EDIT: Yeah, I originally was going to make it just any unarmed combatant, but then realized that that was waaaaay too general a subject. So it's unarmed strikes now. Unarmed....any spell caster, natural attacks (which carry many, many mechanics that it can use), unarmed strike (also very general, but not too general, what I was aiming for). I guess I just didn't change the wording before I posted it.

Note that you could do something like an unarmed strike specialist that uses it in conjunction with natural attacks or something, but the thing is; it has to focus on the unarmed strike, utilizing it in some way to augment battle (not just a "Oh hey, and he can also use an unarmed strike if he wants", but a "His unarmed strikes make his natural attacks better" or something.

[Bhu]

Well...mine's up. It's a VERY rough draft so I still consider it a work in progress as I wrote this at one sitting at 6 am. So I'm sure there are errors and such.

[PinkysBrain]

Full BAB, full saves, more bonus feats than the fighter and class abilities? I'd drop the BAB down to 3/4 at least.

Since it's pretty ridiculous already why not add "or roll a disguise check DC X" to "Gender: Female" :)

[Bhu]

Hehehehehehe

My blood sugar is not so good in the wee hours. I'm in the midst of tweaking it now.

[Bhu]

Well Crap, I didn't get nearly as much time to work as I would've liked. Still I switched some stuff around. Should be finished in time for the contests end tho.

[Egg4christ]

Hey all, this is my first post on any GitP threads, but i've been a fan of the unarmed strike ever since i started Dnd. So, i wanted to run this idea by you to see if it would apply.

I have already created, for a campaign, a class that incorporates the idea of earthbending from Avatar. The Character fights unarmed, with a monk's unarmed damage, but his main powers come in the form of rock walls and rock throwing (magically, or something, he doesn't have to pick them up to throw them.) The throws essentially become ranged unarmed strikes, but doing them draws from a pool of resources, not unlike a ninja's ki pool.

As for the rock walls, the effectively act as immovable tower shields, which everyone can use.
Tell me, decent idea, and does it apply to the current contest?

[PinkysBrain]

Egg4Christ, since no one answered I'll go out on a ledge and say that the class does not have to be a completely original to be entered, but I think it does have to be a prestige class (yours sounds like a base class).

Anyway, my Wuji Priest is up. Comments are welcome, also I seek a nice image of a Taoist monk with a necklace of large prayer beads around his neck ... unless I can find one Kenshiro is going up there :)

PS. how do I indent the first line of a paragraph? The browser removes leading whitespace and the indent tag indents the entire paragraph, putting it in a codebox is not really a great alternative.

PPS. for the few Kenshiro fans, if you are wondering about missing abilities it is of course because Kenshiro has clearly taken the epic progression ;)

[boomwolf]

Good to know that both magic and natural attacks are allowed. now working on two variation (one magic, one natural) and will decide later what to post. (like both so far. maybe will do some sort of a hybrid..."arcane claw"?)

[DracoDei]

Combat Nuns should get Weapon Focus (Nunchuck) and/or Greater Weapon Focus (Nunchunk) as bonus feats...

[PinkysBrain]

Hey a new one (and 0 comments about mine :().

Bobmufin52, about the Student of the Black Palm ... it's not customary to add extra attacks from BAB to prestige class progressions (because they don't usually correspond to the point where your character actually crosses the 5 BAB boundaries). I think Deadly Soul is a bit underpowered and overly complex.

Poison use tends to be terribly expensive as well, I think there is an existing PrC which can conjure up temporary poisons to use ... something like that is pretty much necessary for a poison based PrC IMO.

[DracoDei]

I can't claim credit for the feats, but someone came up with some that reduce the creation times and gold costs (with a very slight XP cost to compensate). Look in my extended signature, find the "Snake-blade" then view the whole thread, and look at the FIRST post (which, once again, isn't mine). The feats should be in there.

[Bhu]

Why does the Wuji Priest have to be living?

[PinkysBrain]

To try to make a thematic connection between his channeling of ki and his ability to sneak attack (ie. the better knowledge of living bodies allows him to channel ki better with his own living body). I guess I could try to play that up a bit more in the fluff text ...

[Bobmufin52]

Hey a new one (and 0 comments about mine :().

Bobmufin52, about the Student of the Black Palm ... it's not customary to add extra attacks from BAB to prestige class progressions (because they don't usually correspond to the point where your character actually crosses the 5 BAB boundaries). I think Deadly Soul is a bit underpowered and overly complex.

Poison use tends to be terribly expensive as well, I think there is an existing PrC which can conjure up temporary poisons to use ... something like that is pretty much necessary for a poison based PrC IMO.

Thanks for the BAB info, I'll fix that. ^_^ As for Deadly soul, do you think it would be easier if it was just usable once a day and then dropped the whole "you could possibly poison yourself" thing?

[PinkysBrain]

It would still be underpowered ... the capstone ability should be something flashy, with a name like Deadly Soul I'd expect some type of effect which destroyed the soul of your opponent. A capstone once a day ability on a prestige class should be pretty much a confirmed kill on a failed safe.

PS. I really don't like death attack, it's almost completely useless.

[Bobmufin52]

Hmm... A save or die ability, I might use that instead. Thanks for the idea! Also, you really don't like death attack? I find it one of the best abilities, if used correctly. But if you have any alternate ideas, I'll be glad to hear them. ^_^

[RS14]

Well, the Oaken Sentinel is provisionally finished.

I'd appreciate any advice I can get. I worried that it's overpowered; my friend worried that it's underpowered. I could use a better way to phrase the interaction between Powerful/Overwhelming Build and Large/Huge size. I'm a bit concerned that the capstone may actually weaken the class, and it certainly does for some builds. I'm considering reducing the dexterity penalties. Letting Oaken Sentinel and Monk levels stack for UAS damage? Partially stack? (1/2 Oaken Sentinel+Monk=4d6 damage for a base medium creature at level 20, which doesn't seem unreasonable).

[PinkysBrain]

With improving class abilities it seems convention to just include the progression in the first mention of the ability, I'd also call the abilities something other than plain Unarmed Strike ... so for instance :

Enhanced Unarmed Strike (Su): At 2nd level, an Oaken Sentinel's unarmed strikes are treated as magic weapons for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction. At 6th level her unarmed strikes are also considered to always have the correct alignment for the purpose of dealing damage to creatures with damage reduction.

And then Enhanced Unarmed Strike (magic) and Enhanced Unarmed Strike (aligned) in the class table.

Instead of 3/2 you can put 1½ (copy paste it).

"xor" is a spelling mistake.

I'd leave out "A trampled creature may chose ..." and instead say "this otherwise works like a normal trample attack." with a hyperlink to the SRD definition of trample after the bit on it doing unarmed strike damage ... at the moment you can trample creatures bigger than you, and that's just a bit ridiculous :)

The copy pasting between powerful build and overwhelming build seems a bit ugly, can't you just say he regains his powerful build ability? Also the "large" and "huge" size names for abilities imply he starts at medium, which is not necessarily correct (and stuff will get completely wacky with polymorph and wild shape of course).

I think the plant type conversion is fine, sure for very few characters it might mean a downgrade ... but taking a class which essentially turns them into a Treant would be unlikely to fit them thematically anyway.

How about some flavour text to indicate his skin slowly takes on the appearance of bark as he gains levels?

"although you will likely have low AC" this is not really true, the natural armor increase offsets the size increase and you have all the options others have to increase your AC.

At the moment the class does need something to make his unarmed strikes better though ... being huge is nice and all, but he is better off wielding a greatsword. So yeah, Unarmed Strike as the monk class feature with level stacking for determining damage at level 1 makes sense.

[RS14]

Thanks for your suggestions, they're very much appreciated. I've implemented them.

I believe my entry is now complete.

[PinkysBrain]

Hey another one made it in ... I guess I'll comment again since no one else is doing it :(

thegurullamen :

You forgot Ex/Su classifiers on abilities.

"Monastic Training" this is just nasty, traditional monk prestige classes give a subset of monk abilities and let you stack your monk levels for those abilities, this way the prestige class is mostly independent of how you get into it. By improving only abilities you have if you had taken levels in monk it essentially makes it a monk prestige class ... because it's far less powerful for anyone else.

"Tactician" lacks rules (ie. what is a battlefield?). I'd just turn it into a bonus you get if you spend the last 24 hours on a given plane of existence, bonus isn't that large that this would make it imbalanced and it fits the theme.

"Planar Leap" a bit complex, why not just skip the speed boost and allow him make a jump without counting his movement to his total move for the round? (Bypassing all intervening obstacles and allow him to make a jump during a charge etc.) It's a bit more powerful, but I don't think it's overpowered and I think it's a bit more internally consistent than the speed boost.

"Twisting Flurry" very nice ability, class defining really ... comes a bit late though.

"Slip the Bonds" you don't ignore gravity on the astral plane, I would reword that and say "may treat gravity as subjective directional gravity as if he were on the astral plane". Also doesn't mention the action it takes.

"Peerless Tactician", again ... what constitutes a battlefield? I'd just go with planar adaption like above, cut the planar adaption time down to 1 hour.

"Astral Freedom" meh, you probably already get it 6 times a day ... having it on continuously is okay, but is it really a great capstone?

All in all I think the class is a bit underpowered.

[dman11235]

Okay, that's it. I've been trying to get on GitP for the last week and a half, and really, since this is the last thing I still come here for, I'm done. The servers must hate me or something, since every time I tried to get on I couldn't due to slow servers. But do not fret! The contest will continue! But not here. The boards here have been my new home, and I will start up a PrC contest here on the first of next month. The only problem is that the table code sucks (I've been trying to find new table code so it's more like the code here, but I've not found anything). Good bye, and good gaming. Hope to see you over at BG for the contests. And maybe the arena too? I run the homebrew arena there, and we desperately need more players.

[thegurullamen]

That sucks. I'm frustrated with the forums as well, but I guess I'm not ready to jump ship yet. Good luck, dman and godspeed.[/godthatwascheesy]
EDIT: Huh, just now noticed Pinkysbrain's complaints/critiques. Well past the point where they'd be useful. This is what I get for not reading this thread more.

Does anyone want to step up and run the contest since it's otherwise effectively over here?

[ErrantX]

I'd be up for starting a new prestige class contest thing. I'll work up some ideas and I'll post something for the next GitP Prestige Class Contest next week.

Good gaming Dman, you'll be missed :)

-X

[Prime32]

That sucks. I'm frustrated with the forums as well, but I guess I'm not ready to jump ship yet. Good luck, dman and godspeed.[/godthatwascheesy]

Jump ship? Plenty of people frequent both, myself included.

Since dman neglected to post a link to the relevant thread...

Also, join the arena - we have our own section of the boards (the mods are very gracious )

[Me_Grog]

I also frequent both. (Notsomuch frequent here, just lurk) Its a great crowd over there.

SixthDeclension

[dman11235]

Jump ship? Plenty of people frequent both, myself included.

Since dman neglected to post a link to the relevant thread...

Also, join the arena - we have our own section of the boards (the mods are very gracious )

That would be because I hadn't made that thread yet. And since it's not the actual contest, I didn't think it important.