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2010-03-15, 11:48 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
- Location
- Long Shiny Cloud-land
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Philosopher Militant [3.5 PrC, PEACH]
Philosopher Militant
The path of the warrior is a broad path, with many twists and detours. Among the many who follow these tracks, a fair number rely on their wits for much of their ability, deriving devastating attacks from their mental agility as much as from their physical might. Some of these warriors apply themselves to both study and practice in equal parts, but a rare few devote themselves entirely to honing the mind as a tool to manipulate the body. These are the philosophers militant, although they are not an order as such, and there is as much difference between philosophers militant as there is between other intellectuals.
Prerequisites
To qualify to become a philosopher militant, a character must meet all of the following criteria.
Base Attack Bonus: +8
Skills:Knowledge (any two) 13 ranks
Feats: Skill Focus (Any Intelligence-based skill)
Maneuvers: Ability to initiate at least one 4th-level maneuver
Hit die: d8
Skill points: 2 + Int modifier per level
Class skills: The philosopher militant possesses all skills as class skills.
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1|+1|+0|+0|+2|Intellectual Stance
2|+2|+0|+0|+3|Sagacious Blow
3|+3|+1|+1|+3|Broad Studies
4|+4|+1|+1|+4|Cogent Grace
5|+5|+1|+1|+4|Cogent Defense
6|+6|+2|+2|+5|Broad Studies
7|+7|+2|+2|+5|Sagacious Aim
8|+8|+2|+2|+6|Sagacious Speed
9|+9|+3|+3|+6|Cogent Resilience
10|+10|+3|+3|+7|Broad Study, Awesome By Analysis[/table]
{table=head]Level|Maneuvers Known|Maneuvers Readied|Stances Known
1|1|0|0
2|0|0|0
3|1|1|0
4|0|0|0
5|1|0|1
6|0|1|0
7|1|0|0
8|0|0|0
9|1|1|0
10|0|0|1[/table]
Class Features
All of the following are class features of the philosopher militant.
Weapon and Armor proficiencies: A philosopher militant gains no new weapon or armor proficiencies.
Maneuvers: At each odd-numbered level, you gain a new maneuver known from the Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, Tiger Claw or White Raven discipline (but see Broad Studies below). You must meet a maneuver’s prerequisites to learn it. You add your philosopher militant class level to your initiator level from other classes to determine your total initiator level and highest level maneuver known. At 3rd, 6th, and 9th levels, you gain an additional maneuver readied. At fifth and tenth levels, you gain a new stance known.
Intellectual Stance (Ex): A philosopher militant gains a special stance known. This stance is known from first level onward. On exiting this stance, the philosopher militant may immediately make any Knowledge check against a DC of 30. If they succeed, they may reenter this stance as a free action next round, and they may recover one martial maneuver.
Sagacious Blow (Ex): A philosopher militant of at least second level may add their Intelligence modifier instead of their Strength modifier to weapon damage as long as they are in the intellectual stance.
Broad Studies (Ex): A philosopher militant of second level adds any one martial discipline to the list of martial disciplines that they may learn. They may immediately retrain up to their intelligence modifier maneuvers to maneuvers of this discipline, although they must still meet the prerequisites for all maneuvers that they know. The philosopher militant adds another available school and may retrain similarly at sixth and tenth level. The philosopher militant retains access to schools acquired through this ability for the purpose of gaining maneuvers known from other classes.
Cogent Grace (Ex): A philosopher militant of at least 3rd level adds their Intelligence modifier to all saving throws instead of Constitution, Dexterity or Wisdom as long as they are in the intellectual stance.
Cogent Defense (Ex): A philosopher militant of at least fourth level may add their Intelligence modifier instead of their Dexterity modifier to their armor class as long as they are in the intellectual stance.
Sagacious Aim (Ex): A philosopher militant of sixth level or higher may add their Intelligence modifier instead of their Strength or Dexterity modifier to attack rolls as long as they are in the intellectual stance.
Sagacious Speed (Ex): A philosopher militant of at least seventh level may add their Intelligence modifier instead of their Dexterity modifier to initiative checks as long as they are in the intellectual stance.
Cogent Resilience (Ex): Whenever a philosopher militant of at least ninth level succeeds on a saving throw to achieve a partial effect that was affected by their cogent grace ability, they suffer no ill effects from it.
Awesome By Analysis (Ex): A philosopher militant who has achieved tenth level may, as a move action once per encounter, gain the ability to use their Intelligence modifier added to their Strength, Dexterity or Constitution modifier instead of their Strength, Dexterity or Constitution modifier respectively for a number of rounds equal to their Intelligence modifier divided by 2. The philosopher militant must be in the Intellectual Stance to use this ability.Last edited by Fortuna; 2010-03-19 at 02:05 PM.
If I creep into your house in the dead of night and strangle you while you sleep, you probably messed up your grammar.
I'm always extremely careful to hedge myself against absolute statements.
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2010-03-17, 12:06 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
- Location
- Long Shiny Cloud-land
- Gender
Re: Philosopher Militant [3.5 PrC, PEACH]
Uh....
Bump?If I creep into your house in the dead of night and strangle you while you sleep, you probably messed up your grammar.
I'm always extremely careful to hedge myself against absolute statements.
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2010-03-17, 01:47 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2008
- Location
- Malsheem, Nessus
- Gender
Re: Philosopher Militant [3.5 PrC, PEACH]
Interesting concept. I'm not sure I like the execution, though.
The gist of this class is that you gain this ability Intellectual Stance, which boils down to trading out the ability to be in a stance to gain the ability to recover a maneuver with a Knowledge check. Every other ability you get is usable only while in this intellectual stance. If you were to rewrite the class such that Intellectual Stance became "Martial Acumen: As a free action once per round, the Philosopher Militant may recover a single maneuver if he succeeds on a DC 30 Knowledge check" and removed reference to the Intellectual stance, literally the only difference would be that the Philosopher Militant would now be able to gain the benefits from a stance.
When martial PrCs give a unique stance, it's generally something that reinforces a particular fighting style but is not necessary--the JPM doesn't have to stay in the Mystic Phoenix stance to retain its class abilities, for instance. The benefits from the class aren't good enough to require preventing use of another stance, so I would personally change Intellectual Stance to do something on its own, make the maneuver recovery aspect a separate ability, and remove reference to Intellectual Stance from the other abilities.
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2010-03-18, 09:23 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Location
- Minnesota
- Gender
Re: Philosopher Militant [3.5 PrC, PEACH]
Put a comma after "tracks."
Prerequisites
To qualify to become a philosopher militant, a character must meet all of the following criteria.
Base Attack Bonus: +8
Skills: Any two Knowledges 13 ranks
Feats: Skill Focus (Any Intelligence-based skill)
Maneuvers: Ability to initiate at least one 4th level maneuver
Hit die: d8
Skill points: 2 + Int modifier per level
Class skills: The philosopher militant possesses all skills as class skills.
{table=head]Level|Base Attack Bonus|Fort|Ref|Will|Special
1|+1|+0|+0|+2|Intellectual Stance
2|+2|+0|+0|+3|Sagacious Blow
3|+3|+1|+1|+3|Broad Studies
4|+4|+1|+1|+4|Cogent Grace
5|+5|+1|+1|+4|Sagacious Aim
6|+6|+2|+2|+5|Broad Studies
7|+7|+2|+2|+5|Cogent Defense
8|+8|+2|+2|+6|Sagacious Speed
9|+9|+3|+3|+6|Cogent Resilience
10|+10|+3|+3|+7|Broad Study, Awesome By Analysis[/table]
{table=head]Level|Maneuvers Known|Maneuvers Readied|Stances Known
1|1|0|0
2|0|0|0
3|1|1|0
4|0|0|0
5|1|0|1
6|0|1|0
7|1|0|0
8|0|0|0
9|1|1|0
10|0|0|1[/table]
Class Features
All of the following are class features of the philosopher militant.
Weapon and Armor proficiencies: A philosopher militant gains no new weapon or armor proficiencies.
Maneuvers: At each odd-numbered level, you gain a new maneuver known from the Diamond Mind, Iron Heart, Stone Dragon, Tiger Claw or White Raven discipline (but see Broad Studies below). You must meet a maneuver’s prerequisites to learn it. You add your whole philosopher militant class level to your initiator level from other classes to determine your total initiator level and highest level maneuver known. At 3rd, 6th, and 9th levels, you gain an additional maneuver readied. At fifth and tenth levels, you gain a new stance known.
Intellectual Stance (Ex): A philosopher militant gains a special stance known. This stance is known from first level onward. On exiting this stance, the philosopher militant may immediately make any Knowledge check against a DC of 30. If they succeed, they may reenter this stance as a free action next round, and they may recover one martial maneuver.
Sagacious Blow (Ex): A philosopher militant of at least second level may add their Intelligence modifier instead of their Strength modifier to weapon damage as long as they are in the Intellectual Stance.
Broad Studies (Ex): A philosopher militant of second level adds any one martial discipline to the list of martial disciplines that they may learn. They may immediately retrain up to their intelligence modifier maneuvers to maneuvers of this discipline, although they must still meet the prerequisites for all maneuvers that they know. The philosopher militant adds another available school and may retrain similarly at sixth and tenth level. The philosopher militant retains access to schools acquired through this ability for the purpose of gaining maneuvers known from other classes.
Cogent Grace (Ex): A philosopher militant of at least 3rd level adds their Intelligence modifier to all saving throws instead of Constitution, Dexterity or Wisdom as long as they are in the Intellectual Stance.
Sagacious Aim (Ex): A philosopher militant of fourth level or higher may add their Intelligence modifier instead of their Strength or Dexterity modifier to attack rolls as long as they are in the Intellectual Stance.
Cogent Defense (Ex): A philosopher militant of at least sixth level may add their Intelligence modifier instead of their Dexterity modifier to their armor class as long as they are in the Intellectual Stance.
Sagacious Speed (Ex): A philosopher militant of at least seventh level may add their Intelligence modifier instead of their Dexterity modifier to initiaative checks as long as they are in the Intellectual Stance.
This should probably come earlier. At 17th level (minimum), this isn't exactly measuring up to other class features available, although, combined with the other abilities, it helps.
Cogent Resilience (Ex): Whenever a philosopher militant of at least ninth level succeeds on a saving throw to achieve a partial effect that was affected by their Cogent Grace ability, they suffer no ill effects from it.
Awesome By Analysis (Ex): A philosopher militant who has achieved tenth level may, as a move action once per encounter, gain the ability to use their Intelligence modifier added to their Strength, Dexterity or Constitution modifier instead of their Strength, Dexterity or Constitution modifier respectively for a number of rounds equal to their Intelligence modifier divided by 3. The philosopher militant must be in the Intellectual Stance to use this ability.
Note that the philosopher militant won't be getting massive bonuses from awesome by analysis (probably) because they're so focused on Intelligence. They get attack, damage, AC, saves, and initiative from Intelligence, so there's no need for Strength or Dexterity (unless the militant is using a ranged weapon with a ranged homebrew discipline), and Constitution's usefulness is cut down somewhat. Because of that, the ability will probably only give them small boosts to each, plus bonuses to bull rushing, tripping, etc.
So...why does the class get new stances if they're just going to be using intellectual stance the whole time (except for the first few levels)? Making some class features not based on one stance could help out a little.
Overall, it's slightly interesting. All class features rely on a single stance that kind of sucks early on (but gets good later), but there are no active class features at all except for the move action to activate awesome by analysis, which then is passive.
Also, to note, I've always thought of philosophers as wise, but Intelligence works too. Note that warblades get slightly better benefits from this class though. Perhaps letting any mental statistic be the main ability score wouldn't be a bad choice, although that is slightly more complicated.Homebrew
Please feel free to PM me any thoughts on my homebrew (or comment in the thread if it's not too old).
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2010-03-19, 02:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Mar 2009
- Location
- Long Shiny Cloud-land
- Gender
Re: Philosopher Militant [3.5 PrC, PEACH]
Thanks for the critique!
Would it be overpowered to grant all of these class abilities without requiring the stance at all, to remove the stance, and to grant the power of the intellectual stance for free? Or does that just get too ridiculous? And can you suggest any replacement capstones, considering that as you said they will be primarily focused on Int?If I creep into your house in the dead of night and strangle you while you sleep, you probably messed up your grammar.
I'm always extremely careful to hedge myself against absolute statements.
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2010-03-19, 02:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2008
- Location
- Minnesota
- Gender
Re: Philosopher Militant [3.5 PrC, PEACH]
Hmm...you're on the right path...it might get too strong then, though.
My thoughts: Compare it to the factotum. They get inspiration points every encounter to spend on nice bonuses to damage, attack, skills, etc.
Essentially, if you remove the stance requirement, you give this class a bunch of factotum class features without inspiration points.
Perhaps someone else will have an idea of what to do with the class aside from that.Homebrew
Please feel free to PM me any thoughts on my homebrew (or comment in the thread if it's not too old).
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2010-03-19, 07:46 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2008
- Location
- Malsheem, Nessus
- Gender
Re: Philosopher Militant [3.5 PrC, PEACH]
Shouldn't be overpowered. The gist of them is to add Int to stuff instead of other mods; the factotum gets to add Int on top of other mods starting at level 1, and by the time they're of equivalent level the factotum should have enough inspiration points to do it fairly reliably.