Tier System for PrCs - Your help needed

[PhaedrusXY]

Take the dungeon with you.  It's what being a stronghold builder is all about.

For extra fun be a Tomb Warden too, and have the dungeon also be a tomb.

Well, duh.  And be a Hathran as well, and have a cohort who's a diplomat from Rasheman set up the place as his embassy.

We should totally work this into the "Death of an Artist" game somehow.

[Suzerain]

Take the dungeon with you.  It's what being a stronghold builder is all about.

For extra fun be a Tomb Warden too, and have the dungeon also be a tomb.

Well, duh.  And be a Hathran as well, and have a cohort who's a diplomat from Rasheman set up the place as his embassy.

We should totally work this into the "Death of an Artist" game somehow.

It's not enough for you to BE the ship, huh?

edits:

Anyways, it's nice to see back the long lost son - of zeal that is. Pardon the bad pun. (Make that extraordinarily bad).

In the spreadsheet version, I've already intended a column for the entry class(es). Sorting by entry may not be an attainable short-term goal, but actually listing the intended entry goes a long way to explain the rating a prc might get (cognition thief, anyone? ). Which is why I've asked Gr1lledcheese to include that in his thread. Once you have a concrete entry in mind, it gets easier to analyse the losses and gains.

On a related note, Salt_Crow, you're me hero for the week.

There's one issue I'd like to take up with you guys: I was under the impression that we assumed PCs to take those PrCs. Because, y'know, the tier system was based on the overall campaign-impact. The overall campaign impact of an intermittant villain is like... not much. That's why I kicked out lots of the serpent kingdom PrCs, because they clearly required non-PC races (NOT because the book is responsible for pun-pun).

So I'd like a logical entry for the "fiends of" line from a player's perspective. I.e. something with +0 LA if at all possible. And possibly excluding Dungeon Lord from the list. (Because I think taking your giant, flying, unassailable castle with you all the time is cheesy. Not that I don't love the Death of an Artist game, because I do, but it's clearly the exception to the rule of: Don't do it).

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Obvious entry is probably a character born on an evil plane who's a planetouched/ took the otherworldly feat...

[Suzerain]

Some 'disputed claims' in chronological order (will get to those in the old thread afterwards. be patient.)

I might be even tempted to drop solar channeler down to -2, since you lose three levels of casting, and gain nothing of value.  

Your class features lets you transform into something that's less powerful.  Oh, and you can't use your magic items.  And it costs a turn attempt per minute.

Seriously, there's no reason why you'd want to take it.

I'll have to take your word for it, I guess. Please do a post in Gr1lledcheese's thread, for all of us who don't have that book.

Shadowsun Ninja should be either +0 or +1 (Dmna's Monk builds only). +0 because no one in their right mind uses the capstone, but the rest of the class features are decent (especially the healing and Darkness ability), +1 because an optimized Monk can deal a shit ton of Negative and Positive energy with each attack. Any build that can deal 12d8+Str+Wis negative energy damage per hit and then turn around and heal an ally equal to the negative energy damage dealt is not a -1 PrC.

Will get back to you with the original rationale for this class, if any.
edit: There wasn't any. I'm seeing full IL advancement and a little less than half maneuvers/stances advancement. I'm not seeing why you wouldn't use the capstone ability (making sure to be immune to con damage for few rounds), since it's 1/day. It's like a soul eater dip, only for 1min/day. The abilities are all weak, as far as I can see, though. The negative/positive energy attacks require a standard action each and can't be used more than once per turn, or the same ability on two consecutive rounds. I'm not at all seeing this worth +0.

I actually disagree about the Initiate of Pistis Sophia:

This class stacks the monk AC bonus, the unarmed strike damage, the flurry of blows, the speed and the ki strike progression (so that your ki strike could still be considered adamantine). Yes, a lot of Monk PrCs advance most monk abilities (AC bonus, unarmed strike, flurry, speed etc.) but not all advance the ki strike progression.

So, if a Monk multiclassed into Initiate of Pistis Sophia by 16 level (he can enter the class at 6) he could lose wholeness of body (which good but could easily be taken with one more monk level), diamond body, diamond soul, quivering palm, tongue of the sun of moon (while a nice ability fluff-wise, it's not that important if you're not the party face), empty body, perfect self, timeless body and the slow fall progression (but who cares about slow fall?), he could still get improved evasion and he would instead get detect evil at will (handy but not great of course), a smite attack (not so useful though), electricity resistance (not so big but still good), uncanny and improved uncanny dodge (always good in my book), celestial transformation (outsider (native) type and DR 10/evil) and 4 bonus feats (Fist of the Heavens and 3 sacred vows).

If you make the math it actually trades 8 class features for 10 class features (3 bonus sacred vows among them). Yes, sacred vows are restrictive but they give a lot of bonuses as well so if you're effectively planning on turning your Monk into a celestial that's the best way to do it. Also, if you wanted to take sacred vows with your Monk, this PrC could help you being less feat-intensive and save some space for feats like Touch of Golden Ice

Overally, I believe that it is in no way a -1 PrC. I think that it's in the borders of weak +1 to strong +0.

I want consensus on this first. Apostle of Peace is down so much because of its vows, iirc. Depending on which vows those are, it may be very limiting. I'd like others to state their opinion on this, though.

I'd put the Spellguard of Silverymoon at +1 at least, as it progresses Metamagic faster than a straight Wizard or Sorcerer, and also gives an Archmage High Arcana (+1 Spell Power) for free, and none of that ties to the mythal.  Actually, nothing in the class save the token ties it to the mythal, and if it's in backstory, it's definitely +1 at least, IMHO.

I tend to agree but will look at the specs of the class in a minute. edit: +1, I think. Low in that tier if you actually have to teleport back every week to do your 'duty', but high if it's in your backstory or you're in silverymoon all the time anyways.

[Nuntius Mortis]

I want consensus on this first. Apostle of Peace is down so much because of its vows, iirc. Depending on which vows those are, it may be very limiting. I'd like others to state their opinion on this, though.

Of course, the vows are limiting. If they weren't limiting, they wouldn't been vows in the first place after all

Of course, there are vows that are less limiting as well. For example, the Vow of Abstistence or Vow of Chastity are not so restrictive (well, if you don't use the Book of Erotic Fantasy in your campaign but why would you want to play an Exalted Monk in such a campaign in the first place? ). Vow of Poverty is also a personal favourite of mine despite its limitations to not use magical items (I don't much about' em personally but I know that most do).

Key point: One should take this PrC only if he wants to play an Exalted Monk and maybe becoming a Celestial Paragon in the process. True, most players wouldn't like something like that and thus wouldn't take this PrC. But to those that would like something like that the PrC would be useful.

[Sinfire Titan]

Will get back to you with the original rationale for this class, if any.
edit: There wasn't any. I'm seeing full IL advancement and a little less than half maneuvers/stances advancement. I'm not seeing why you wouldn't use the capstone ability (making sure to be immune to con damage for few rounds), since it's 1/day. It's like a soul eater dip, only for 1min/day. The abilities are all weak, as far as I can see, though. The negative/positive energy attacks require a standard action each and can't be used more than once per turn, or the same ability on two consecutive rounds. I'm not at all seeing this worth +0.

One ally with Necropolitan or Tomb-Tainted Soul, and one living ally (or yourself for one of those two). Kuddos, infinite healing. Dman's Monk builds are also notorious for getting around 30 some-odd d8+Wis+Str damage on each attack he makes. Its effectively Heal and Harm at-will, with no save for half.

The Darkness sphere is huge, and effectively gives you blindsight while blinding everyone else in the radius every other round.


I'll go into a more detailed explanation later, but those two are the best parts.

[Negative Zero]

Extrapolating the chart usually ends up with 32d8 damage per hit, last I checked. Naturally, it's possible to go over this if you optimize for it, but Dman tends to end up there.

[Suzerain]

The text says "base damage" and it wouldn't make sense to be better at healing by hitting harder. But I don't want to argue the point. One question though, how many levels of shadow sun ninja do the builds exploiting this usually take? Not that I'm doubting the ability of the CO community to optimize this, I just think a single standard action to do 32d8 negative energy damage a hit pales in comparison to doing the same thing three to five times a turn (more if hasted). Of course, it's easier (near-guaranteed) to hit with a touch attack, but that would be an option, then. Not really worth taking all the levels.

The darkness sphere... eludes my rules-fu on how useful it would be, but it'd 'only' be every two rounds and your allies are potentially affected as well (unlike the light sphere).

edits:

Renegade mastermaker: +1 tier.  Only progresses casting/infusions 8/10s, IIRC, but for a gish it's pretty awesome. 

You see, you can buy max HP with this class at 10 gp each.  5 gp, if you craft them yourself, and since you're required to have the feats, why not?

I'd like someone to comment on this.

I'd like to contest Ebon Saint.
It's Dire Augs are strickly better than the lurk entry's augmentations, it even gives you a no restrictions alter form, which would make this a +0 or +1.

On this one even more.

I would nominate Cognition Thief for +2 since you can use it as a dip to get schism, mindlink (preq for the great thrallherd) or take it all the way for the game breaking psy chiurguery.

No. Dips don't count, thrallherd can be accessed with EK and psi chirurgy is better when someone else uses it and is also accessible through EK. A PrC that loses 4 ML almost per definition can't be +2. We've mulled over this class before, but unless you can reach consensus here (i.e. I'm not fighting this one out with you), I won't move a class into +2-territory just because you say so.
edit: Err, this sounds kinda harsh. It's nothing personal, I just don't see it and don't want to deal with it

[Negative Zero]

Fewer attacks per round is a concern, but so is the damage type. I've never heard of any creature that resists negative energy damage (except undead), while the number of creatures that resist bludgeoning damage is very, very high.

[Suzerain]

Fewer attacks per round is a concern, but so is the damage type. I've never heard of any creature that resists negative energy damage (except undead), while the number of creatures that resist bludgeoning damage is very, very high.

I understand that, but I'm thinking this is a lot better if you're just dipping the class. If there's some evidence that this class is worth taking to 5th/6th level (although when you're that far in you'll probably want to go further), it would be a reason to bump it up.

It would be easier for me to see the value of the class if you'd state the logical entry for it, though. And I'm looking forward to the explanation of how to exploit the darkness sphere (and the corresponding ability to ignore blindness penalties and instead gain a bonus on other blinded creatures).

[Brainpiercing]

One ally with Necropolitan or Tomb-Tainted Soul, and one living ally (or yourself for one of those two). Kuddos, infinite healing. Dman's Monk builds are also notorious for getting around 30 some-odd d8+Wis+Str damage on each attack he makes. Its effectively Heal and Harm at-will, with no save for half.

The Darkness sphere is huge, and effectively gives you blindsight while blinding everyone else in the radius every other round.

 a
I'll go into a more detailed explanation later, but those two are the best parts.

Hmm, if Darkness=blinded for any creature within it (and without extra senses) then it might be good, although you only get +4 to attack and damage, and you have to blind yourself to anyone who isn't blinded, which kind of sucks. And yes, the way I see it this naturally affects your allies, unless they shield themselves from it, since the darkness is a burst.

The infinite healing is nice, I guess, in spite of the standard action. As a necropolitan this might be worthwhile (or any better undead template), if you can push your unarmed damage.
I still see lots of useless levels, though, and the usual 3/4 BAB crap.

[Sinfire Titan]

The text says "base damage" and it wouldn't make sense to be better at healing by hitting harder. But I don't want to argue the point. One question though, how many levels of shadow sun ninja do the builds exploiting this usually take? Not that I'm doubting the ability of the CO community to optimize this, I just think a single standard action to do 32d8 negative energy damage a hit pales in comparison to doing the same thing three to five times a turn (more if hasted). Of course, it's easier (near-guaranteed) to hit with a touch attack, but that would be an option, then. Not really worth taking all the levels.

The darkness sphere... eludes my rules-fu on how useful it would be, but it'd 'only' be every two rounds and your allies are potentially affected as well (unlike the light sphere).

8, usually. 10 is tops, but the 9th and 10th levels don't offer much unless you get a ton of Unarmed Attacks/round.

The thing is, the healing ability is based off of the damage you deal, not the base unarmed damage for a creature of your size. If it intended to only be the base unarmed strike damage, it would have said to exclude your IUS damage entirely (thus it would be 1d3+Wis). Because it doesn't say this, it goes off of full unarmed damage. Dman has proven that this is easy to boost to the point where every attack deals a ton of damage.

The important part is that it's At Will. Get the party Wizard to use wands of Summon Undead 1 (or Animate Dead on a Frog), punch it once to inflict and then punch your buddy to heal them a ton of damage.

The Darkness trick works like this:

Round 1) Swift action, activate the Child of Shadow and Light and start with the Darkness sphere. Also, use the Darkness Within Light feature (and maybe a Scroll of True Strike or something that negates the 50% miss chance that round). Make a Hide check within the Darkness sphere. Hit the enemy once. Enemy is effectively blinded unless they have Blindsight (specifically). Darkvision doesn't see through this, though Baatezu probably can (won't matter next round). Effectively, this is imposing a 50% miss-chance on any enemy within the sphere, and your allies can just use a Blindfold of True Darkness or something to become immune (making sure the Wizard disables the enemy's magic items is a good idea for this trick, though it may not be needed unless the DM remembers to hand-pick their equipment).

Round 2) Invert Child of Shadow and Light, maintain Darkness within Light. Trigger Light Within Darkness. Every enemy within 60ft needs to save or be blinded for 1 round.

Round 3) Repeat from Round 1.



Effectively, you are forcing them to Save or Suck every other round, and forcing them to Be Prepared or Suck every other round. Mass Blindness is awesome to have at will, and the Darkness sphere is also effectively a Blindness ability. Your allies can be made immune using spells/magic items (so can the enemy, but that's why you have a Wizard).



Finally, Shadow Hand has some great maneuvers for mobility. You can easily use some of those boosts to sneak up on an enemy, then drop a sphere of darkness on their asses (or try Blinding them on round 1). The Dark Creature template (Collar of Umbral Metamorphosis) makes this PrC incredible. And Setting Sun has some of the best reactive maneuvers in the game, allowing you to play minor Battlefield Control if the enemy can't be blinded.

[Suzerain]

Ok, you have convinced me. Sounds to me like +1, now. Levels 1, 4 and 8 have good abilities. What would the logical entry be? Do unarmed swordsages qualify automatically by level 5?

[Samb]

I'd like to contest Ebon Saint.
It's Dire Augs are strickly better than the lurk entry's augmentations, it even gives you a no restrictions alter form, which would make this a +0 or +1.

On this one even more.

I gave Ebon saint the -2 since I had the entry class as lurk.  The main reason is that it gives doesn't stack when determining lurk augments.  Alter form is nice, but you have to stab someone first.  All self respecting psionic users will take up EK: metamorphosis or research it ASAP.  Metamorph is plain better than alter form (both need metamorphic transfer so that is a moot point) and taking straight lurk also means you get a better power at about the same time since you lose a ML taking ebon saint.  Everything revolves around landing a dire strike, if you compare its capstone to cloud mind, cloud mind comes out on top since they only need to fail a will save.  Disappear from mind requires a successful dire strike AND a failed will save.
IF ebon saint class levels stacks with lurk augment levels then this might be the only PrC lurks would ever need, instead it sets them back in both ML and lurk augments, and the class abilities it grants are sub par when compared to the powers it is duplicating (and the fact that lurks can easily get them with research and EK).

I would nominate Cognition Thief for +2 since you can use it as a dip to get schism, mindlink (preq for the great thrallherd) or take it all the way for the game breaking psy chiurguery.

No. Dips don't count, thrallherd can be accessed with EK and psi chirurgy is better when someone else uses it and is also accessible through EK. A PrC that loses 4 ML almost per definition can't be +2. We've mulled over this class before, but unless you can reach consensus here (i.e. I'm not fighting this one out with you), I won't move a class into +2-territory just because you say so.
edit: Err, this sounds kinda harsh. It's nothing personal, I just don't see it and don't want to deal with it

You put cognition thief at +1 because I said so, don't start growing a backbone now!!!!!

Okay forget the dip parts, take it as a suggestion.

You are right, psi chirurgy is better when used on you, so use psi chirurgy to give someone psi chiurgy and you have a broken character (along with psyreform).  Forget thralls, you have charm and dominate, so you can just force them pimp you.  In the levels you lose ML give you 2 telepath powers, which is HUGE for a wilder since they lack powers.  Think about it wilder only gets 15 powers in 20 levels (using the educated variant).  A cognition thief will gain 11 powers in 10 levels.  That is equal to how much a regular wilder gains his whole pre-epic career!  So you increase you powers known, don't lose any high level powers (thanks to practised manifester) and gain a bunch of PLA (like read thoughts AT WILL) all for a bad feat and lose of around 130 power points (wild surge makes up for this).

No, you can't get psi chirury with EK.  You would need to have level 10 powers before you can pick level 9 powers.  So unless you plan to go epic this is the only way for a non telepath to get it (or have it implanted into your head).

[Sinfire Titan]

Ok, you have convinced me. Sounds to me like +1, now. Levels 1, 4 and 8 have good abilities. What would the logical entry be? Do unarmed swordsages qualify automatically by level 5?

Yeah. Swordsage 5 gets in, you just need IUS (so even the armored version does). Dman's Monk builds typically have 1 or 2 levels of Monk to start the unarmed shenanigans off, but if you don't mind only healing a few points every other round and just want to abuse the Blindness ability then Swordsage works just fine.

[Samb]

Ok I read the ebon saint thread and all I can say is this:  Any psionic class should and will go for metamorphosis.  This can be done with being a egoist, a shifter wilder, the natural world mantle (ardent, divine mind, ACF for psywar and wilder) or EK.  If you told me the entry for this class was rogue/psion I'd say you sac'd 2 ML of psion to gain alter from when you could have just taken metamorphosis at around the same time.  The fact metamorphosis is better and doesn't require a successful dire strike is just insult to injury.

No matter how you look at it ebon sucks.  It's features all rely on dire strike and are inferior to the the power and you get it later or about the same time.  This PrC really should never have been made.  Cloud mind is it's capstone......at level 15 psion you could get mass cloud mind.  I hope that puts things into perceptive.

[Surreal]

Renegade mastermaker: +1 tier.  Only progresses casting/infusions 8/10s, IIRC, but for a gish it's pretty awesome. 

You see, you can buy max HP with this class at 10 gp each.  5 gp, if you craft them yourself, and since you're required to have the feats, why not?

I'd like someone to comment on this.

It's a specific build, but a reasonably strong one at that. There's a link with discussion on it in my handy links at 339. I believe it starts as a psionic artificer and you load up with slotless items that grant pp and powers, while simultaneously crank up your hp. If the PC has a means to generate cash and has no time limit, he churns all his resources into permanently augmenting himself.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

It's not really that specific a build.  It's using the seventh level ability just as intended - item crafting is a prereq for even entering.

The ridiculously low prices for HP come from adding in warforged component-ized versions of 10gp psionic shards, but even a 50gp gray ioun stone works.

You *could* use it to implant lots of pp-granting items, but you don't have to by any means, and several thousand hit points is gishtastic.

[Suzerain]

Obvious entry is probably a character born on an evil plane who's a planetouched/ took the otherworldly feat...

You need to have the evil subtype. Have you forgotten that, or else, which part of what you said does the magic? Also, you need to have charm person/monster as SLA for FoC and an SLA of 4th lvl or higher for FoB.

"Fiend of Blasphemy" - Totally focussed on getting people to do the ritual with you, but pretty sweet in the right context.  Highly campaign dependent, but I'd call it Equal to Up One, erring on the side of Up One just because of how well the mechanics support and augment the flavour.  Give this to a player in a freeform social campaign, and they'll take over the world in a year.

Looking for a suitable race as I speak.

"Fiend of Corruption" - Grants wishes.  Up Two.

Not quite. The wishes aren't free. Nobody really wants "spend 5000xp" as their class feature. The soul you're getting in return isn't really worth much afaik and real soul binding is definitely preferable. As it stands, it gives a bunch of 1/day spell-likes, atonement at will and mind-shielding (ring of mind shielding costs 8000gp). Alternate form is really crazy because then you'll be a PC who is an outsider trying to be humanoid. Probably has its uses, but I'm not seeing them. This would go into the -1 to -2 pile in my book. Still trying to find an 1HD outsider with charm person...

edit: Touch of Captivation gives charm person, and should be aquirable if you're already an outsider with the evil subtype.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

As far as I can tell, you get the evil subtype if you're an outsider native to an evil plane.