The Maker's Crown [D&D 3.5 - Eberron]

[VennDygrem]

If I could just add Share Pain to the Guardian Mantle, and replace Adrenaline Surge with Expansion on the Physical Power mantle, I'd be happy and mostly done building my character.

Here is a link to the mantles, so you don't have to look it up. I don't know why, but the Freedom mantle seems to be missing for some reason...

And is retraining maneuvers and stances known as I level ok?

And... if I play an Illumian with the Krau sigil, will that add a +1 to my manifester level? I think it should under the default transparency rules, but I thought I should make sure.

Those changes to the mantles sound fine. You can retrain stances and maneuvers each level, but only for another of the same level. If you want to retrain for higher level maneuvers, you'll have to stick with the rate given under the Crusader class entry, though you can base this off of total initiator level rather than crusader class level. The same goes for anyone else taking levels in martial adept classes, but not for the Martial Study feat. That will require Psychic Reformation.

Psionic Illumian is Go.

@Bowen: I'm going to have to draw the line at Planar Shepard. Druids are quite powerful enough without it. Natural Bond also doesn't allow your effective druid level to exceed your character level, and thus is not going to give you any benefit unless you multiclass to something that doesn't stack with druid for animal companions. If you can make a proper argument for Planar Shepard I might let it slide. What plane were you planning on attuning to, anyway?

[Prime32]

On that monk/soulknife thing, the feat which lets you treat a mind blade as a monk weapon is Flowing Blade, and kalashtar RSLs let you pick up psionic feats as monk bonus feats.

[BowenSilverclaw]

@Bowen: I'm going to have to draw the line at Planar Shepard. Druids are quite powerful enough without it. Natural Bond also doesn't allow your effective druid level to exceed your character level, and thus is not going to give you any benefit unless you multiclass to something that doesn't stack with druid for animal companions. If you can make a proper argument for Planar Shepard I might let it slide. What plane were you planning on attuning to, anyway?

Fair enough
I was going with the old universal rule of 'applying things in the most favorable order', so first losing 3 druid levels for AC purposes when picking up a Fleshraker, then getting those back with Natural Bond.


As for the Planar Shepherd thing, I wasn't planning on any shenanigans, really. I just figured it was the only decent PrC out there and was hoping to find a plane with some decent Magical Beasts for Wild Shape options at level 8 (haven't found any so far, but then again, I haven't really looked into it yet).

I'm fine with ditching it though, frees up another feat and some skill points


EDIT: I suppose I can't convince you to allow Natural Bond if I drop Planar Shepherd?

[Prime32]

Well, there's a decent shifter druid PrC in Races of Eberron - focuses on summoning and shifting. The same book has an option to trade your animal companion for a "beast spirit" which possesses you and grants you various boosts, and which can be transferred to creatures you summon.

[PhaedrusXY]

You can retrain stances and maneuvers each level, but only for another of the same level. If you want to retrain for higher level maneuvers, you'll have to stick with the rate given under the Crusader class entry, though you can base this off of total initiator level rather than crusader class level.

Hmm... So I'll be starting out as an Ardent4/Crusader 2, with an initiator level of 4. So according to that, I could trade out one of my lower level maneuvers at character creation (which wouldn't benefit me at all ).

Then later, upon taking my second JPM level (making my IL 6), I could trade out another one.

That doesn't include stances known though, does it? What I really want to be able to do is swap out the stance gained at Crusader 2 for Thicket of Blades when I hit IL 5...

Hmm... if I went with the Illumian... would you let the +1 "caster level" from the Krau sigil apply to my Initiator Level, too?   Then I could start out with Thicket of Blades, and not worry about having to retrain to get it.

Edit: Or we could make up a new Sigil that boosts IL by +1. I'd take that and Krau, and then we'd have to decide what the benefits of the "word" they make are.

How about this:
Krau (magic): This is the official sigil that boosts caster levels by +1, up to a maximum of your character level.
Vash (game): (Custom sigil) This sigil boosts your initiator level for martial adept classes by +1, up to a maximum of your character level.
VashKrau: (Custom power word) This sigil combination allows you to recover a spent maneuver by expending your psionic focus and a few power points. The number of power points required is the same as what would be required to manifest a power of the same level as the maneuver you're recovering.

Assuming a custom Sigil to boost IL is ok, I'm done with my build skeleton.

Illumian Ardent 3/Erudite 1/Crusader 2
Sigils: Krau and a custom one that boosts IL by +1.
Feats: Practiced Manifester:Ardent (1), Psicrystal Affinity (Eru1), Psicrystal Containment (Eru1), Combat Reflexes (flaw), Stand Still (3), Stone Power (6)
Mantles: Guardian, Time, Physical Power
Ardent Powers (ML6): Vigor, Expansion, Damp Power, Share Pain
Gear: Deep Crystal Glaive or Guisarme, Steadfast Boots

Progression:
1 Ardent 1 Practiced Manifester, Expansion, Vigor
2 Erudite 1 Psicrystal Affinity and Containment
3 Ardent 2 Stand Still, Share Pain
4 Ardent 3 Damp Power
5 Crusader 1
6 Crusader 2 Stone Power

Crusader Maneuvers (IL5, using the custom sigil to boost IL by +1):
Vanguard Strike (DS1, no prereq, std, if attack hits allies gain +4 to attack target till next turn)
Stone Vise (SD2 no prereq, std +1d6 dmg, Fort (DC 12+Str) or movement is 0 for 1 round)
3 more level 1 or 2 maneuvers

Stances:
Leading the Charge (WR1, no prereqs, swift, stance, allies that charge gain +IL to damage)
Thicket of Blades (all movement provokes, including 5' steps)

[Prime32]

Maybe I'll try that soulknife build - the last time I played one it never really got off the ground. Lessee...

LG Kalashtar Monk (decisive strike) 2/Soulknife 2/Binder 1/Soulbow 1
Feats: Flowing Blade^B, Point Blank Shot, Stunning Fist^B, Stunning Master, Weapon Focus (mind blade)^B, Zen Archery, ?, ?
Flaws: Shaky

Any fixes I could use? Could I take something like white dragonspawn or unseelie fey for the fly speed?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

Actually, since the ability is usable only once per day for a paladin, you wouldn't really be able to exploit this much.

The abusable thing about steal SLA is that it doesn't reduce the uses of the SLA of the target - just renders it inoperable for a while.  

Basically, outside of combat I get unlimited uses out of SLAs.  Inside of combat, I have to be standing next to whoever has the SLA and spend a turn stealing it to use it for free.  Action economy-wise, I don't think this is too broken, especially since I can only bank it for a minute.  On the other hand, I get unlimited uses of shocking grasp to heal myself up after combat, and if someone takes mark of healing for a cure spell I can heal up everyone but the vampire (or if they pick lesser restoration, I can heal up the hellfire warlock's ability damage at the end of every combat).

Of course, getting the buffs from 24 hour invocations will be nice.  

On further reading, it looks more like I'd just be able to teleport the paladin's horsie in without the paladin using up his charges, since it's a "teleport in horsie" ability rather than "create horsie".  Darn.

Hmm... Spellthief + mistling = unlimited usage of "conjure living spell".    Can't possibly fit the trick in here, but I'll save it for future note.

Maybe I'll try that soulknife build - the last time I played one it never really got off the ground. Lessee...

LG Kalashtar Monk (decisive strike) 2/Soulknife 2/Binder 1/Soulbow 1
Feats: Flowing Blade^B, Point Blank Shot, Stunning Fist^B, Stunning Master, Weapon Focus (mind blade)^B, Zen Archery, ?, ?
Flaws: Shaky

Any fixes I could use? Could I take something like white dragonspawn or unseelie fey for the fly speed?

Yes, "for the flight speed".  And I assume you read those magazines "for the articles" as well.   

[Prime32]

Yes, "for the flight speed".  And I assume you read those magazines "for the articles" as well.  

...it's a very good flight speed. Seriously, the other stuff is nice and I'm not going to turn it down if I can get it, but I mainly want doubled monk speed + Flyby Attack. It could be reflavoured as "mind wings".

[VennDygrem]

Ok, Here's something I'm going to do for everyone as a freebie, so no one has to use any tricks to get it, and you can save some spell slots/PP/invocations:

How about if everyone starts with a special artifact item that allows them to use the Fly spell 3/day using their character level as caster level. It's been provided by the patron sending you out on the adventure in the first place, and he's promising more wonders if you succeed. Hopefully this should curb the need for trickier shenanigans. No need to research Avariels, no need for white dragonspawn, etc. Your patron, however, has a recall button, effectively, in case one of you dies. He's not investing in you so you can just go about losing his artifacts.

This is not counted toward standard WBL, but I can take it away at anytime it seems like it could be overly abused. I don't expect I'll have to, and really at this level PCs should have fairly reliable access to flight. You can activate it as a standard action, or as a swift action but the duration is counted in rounds rather than minutes.

@TML: The Paladin's horse would still be loyal to only the Paladin anyway. Still, can be useful for the action economy, and you could cast useful buffs on the cohort and mount for charging. And remember, I'm not enforcing the Good/Evil alignment axis for Paladins, they need only be Lawful, so it should be easier to create a cleric/prestige paladin/whatever build, if that's what you're going for. In another PbP game that fell through, I had a Warlock//Spellthief with a Cl. Cleric cohort to use as a "spell battery" so to speak. I never got very far with it though, as the game effectively died shortly after it began.

@Prime: Link me to what class fixes you'd like to use and I'll look it over. There are several for both Monks and the Soulknife, so you've got your pick.
I might also allow the Tome Monk since it's fairly well-balanced, though it doesn't mesh well with Tashalatora or multiclassing. It's really something better left to a level-20 build, with maybe a couple dips.

@Phaedrus: Custom sigil looks fine. I don't think there's really any reason to require the PP cost to the Power word ability. Then again, as a crusader you'll never run out of maneuvers.
Build looks fine.

[The_Mad_Linguist]

So, here's a question about meta-SLA interaction

If I have, say, a factotum with mortalbane, can he prepare a mortalbane magic missile at the beginning of the day, or is it applied when he casts it?

Can a spellthief apply mortalbane to stolen SLAs?

On second thought, bloodlines are so confusing that I don't want to open that can of worms.  

Hmmmm... can I trade my spellthief spellcasting for something more useful?  Or alter "master spellthief" so it progresses my "spell-like ability levels" instead of my "spell levels"?

[VennDygrem]

So, here's a question about meta-SLA interaction

If I have, say, a factotum with mortalbane, can he prepare a mortalbane magic missile at the beginning of the day, or is it applied when he casts it?

Can a spellthief apply mortalbane to stolen SLAs?

Mortalbane is usable on any SLA's a creature has, up to 5 times per day, and is applied when the user choses to. It isn't prepared that way, though it doesn't increase the casting time the way a metamagic feat does for spontaneous spellcasters.
I'm going to say that a spellthief can't use mortalbane on a stolen SLA since it's technically a Supernatural ability, and is treated as though it came from the originating creature. However, a Factotum can use the feat to modify their Arcane Dilettante ability.

Hmmmm... can I trade my spellthief spellcasting for something more useful?  Or alter "master spellthief" so it progresses my "spell-like ability levels" instead of my "spell levels"?

What would you be trading your spellthief spellcasting for, exactly?

[Chemus]

@Chemus:

Reconsidering wild mage; it's a pain in the ass. Even if the EB dice were leveled out, rolling for how many dice I roll is just a pain.

Just the Hellfire warlock (plus binder if necessary), and maybe mindbender, since it's almost free , are what I have so far.

If you're worried about damage level, I'd be willing to allow a class fix that improves damage and number of invocations.
Otherwise, if you still like wild mage but just don't like the rolling mechanic, we could always come up with an alternate class feature that introduces some wildness to some other aspect, such as a random chance to draw upon an eldritch essence or blast shape. Just something to think about.

If I were re-working warlock, I'd make any alignment available. I'd also make EB's description to be "...1d6, plus 1d6 at 3rd caster level and every two caster levels after 3rd..." to clean up any "+ caster level" messes. All invocations (EB being an invocation too) would count as spells (not SLA's) with a level of effective warlock level/2, max 9th (pre epic) with only a somatic component. They might duplicate other spells, but get heighten for free (for PrC and feat qualifications, as well as saves). 2nd level spells by 4th etc., just like sorcerer. Metamagic of +0 would work, but others wouldn't. You'd get one invocation at 1st, with additional invocations at 3/4 (for a total of 16). At 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th, I'd place the DR increases there, and give a special ability at most of those (those are the no invocation levels).

As for the wild mage, I'm using very normally available cheese with the Practiced spellcaster, but rolling a die to see if I get 1 2 or 3 extra dice on EB is maybe not as bad as I think. I'll probably keep it.

As to the flavor, I was only going into hellfire warlock for the damage, honestly. I'd be just as happy with the Silver Flame or some such giving the extra damage. I was even looking at a petal (LA +2) fey.

[PhaedrusXY]

@Phaedrus: Custom sigil looks fine. I don't think there's really any reason to require the PP cost to the Power word ability. Then again, as a crusader you'll never run out of maneuvers.
Build looks fine.

Great. Mainly I wanted to be able to reuse a good maneuver that I'd just used (on the next round). I think that would be tremendously useful. I see now that the way I worded it wouldn't actually let you do that, though. Hmm...

[VennDygrem]

@Chemus:

If I were re-working warlock, I'd make any alignment available. I'd also make EB's description to be "...1d6, plus 1d6 at 3rd caster level and every two caster levels after 3rd..." to clean up any "+ caster level" messes. All invocations (EB being an invocation too) would count as spells (not SLA's) with a level of effective warlock level/2, max 9th (pre epic) with only a somatic component. They might duplicate other spells, but get heighten for free (for PrC and feat qualifications, as well as saves). 2nd level spells by 4th etc., just like sorcerer. Metamagic of +0 would work, but others wouldn't. You'd get one invocation at 1st, with additional invocations at 3/4 (for a total of 16). At 5th, 9th, 13th, and 17th, I'd place the DR increases there, and give a special ability at most of those (those are the no invocation levels).

As for the wild mage, I'm using very normally available cheese with the Practiced spellcaster, but rolling a die to see if I get 1 2 or 3 extra dice on EB is maybe not as bad as I think. I'll probably keep it.

As to the flavor, I was only going into hellfire warlock for the damage, honestly. I'd be just as happy with the Silver Flame or some such giving the extra damage. I was even looking at a petal (LA +2) fey.

Petal is cohort only, as mentioned in its entry.

Unfortunately I wouldn't change Warlocks' invocations from SLAs to spells. It opens up a lot of PrC's, but most of them really wouldn't do the Warlock any good.

If you want to change the flavor of Hellfire Warlock and be Good-aligned, I'll allow it. Change references to Hellfire to Righteous Fire, Hellfire Infusion becomes Righteous Infusion, Hellfire Shield becomes Righteous Shield. The Requirements change as well. Language requirement changes from Infernal to Celestial, and Kn: Planes can be switched for Kn: Religion, though it doesn't need to be; You must also worship a good-aligned deity, though you needn't be Good-aligned yourself (it just makes more sense to be). The divine entity you beseech for these powers demand proof of piety, and each point of constitution damage represents this. Anyone willing to suffer themself for the sake of defeating evil is proven beyond doubt. If you take this path and play a good character, rather than having to take a level of Binder, I'll say that you gain a special invocation when taking the first level of Righteous Warlock that allows you to heal 1 point of ability damage per round, as the ability gained from binding Naberius. This is equal to a Lesser invocation and takes a slot as such; The effect lasts for 24 hours. The divine entity you worship demands proof of your piety, but does not want to see you suffer too long. Note that a Righteous Warlock, like a Hellfire Warlock, might sustain multiple points of con damage in a given round, so you're not guaranteed to heal all of it right away.

@Phaedrus: How about: "By spending a swift action to expend your Psionic Focus, you may recover any one maneuver you have already used this encounter and which is currently unavailable to you. You may only recover a given maneuver this way once per encounter." Technically it's the same meaning. This effectively allows you to choose the next granted maneuver for the next round, and almost acts like a Boost maneuver since it takes a swift action to do, but does not allow you to use a boost or psionic feat in the same round you use the ability. There are also limited uses per encounter, so it's not too overpowered compared to other power word abilities. It's still relatively powerful (as in 'useful'), but not really any more than the others.

Sound fair?

[The_Mad_Linguist]

I'm not really sure what I'd be trading it for.  There's a dragon 353 variant that gives you scaling bonuses to some sneaky skills instead (not sure how good it is).  Given that I have a cha penalty, and no use for cha other than spellcasting, and that I'm a little tired of playing high cha characters, I'd prefer to make one of my lower stats this time.

[VennDygrem]

Since spellthief is often regarded as being somewhat subpar, and you seem to be focusing on SLA's, would you say that you might want to switch your spellcasting to a version of the Factotum's Arcane Dilettante power? I'm not sure how balanced that would be, but if anyone has any suggestions as to how this might be made to work, I could be willing to allow it, at least on a trial basis.

Personally, I've been trying to develop a casting class that plays solely with SLA's rather than spells. I know it's possible to build such a character by combining feats, templates, etc., but I think a class could be constructed this way. I don't have anything down right now. If I had it written up it would've been an obvious choice for your cohort, though.

[PhaedrusXY]

@Phaedrus: How about: "By spending a swift action to expend your Psionic Focus, you may recover any one maneuver you have already used this encounter and which is currently unavailable to you. You may only recover a given maneuver this way once per encounter." Technically it's the same meaning. This effectively allows you to choose the next granted maneuver for the next round, and almost acts like a Boost maneuver since it takes a swift action to do, but does not allow you to use a boost or psionic feat in the same round you use the ability. There are also limited uses per encounter, so it's not too overpowered compared to other power word abilities. It's still relatively powerful (as in 'useful'), but not really any more than the others.

Sound fair?

Requiring you to expend your focus already makes it quite limited in how often you can use it in an encounter. Even without the swift action requirement, you have to spend a feat (Psionic Meditation or Psicrystal Containment) in order to realistically use this more than once in an encounter. I also have other things I plan to use my focus on, namely my ardent mantle abilities, which I think will often be more useful than this. So I may not even use this regularly.

So I don't really care much, as I don't expect to use this often, but I think the swift action and once per encounter limitations are unnecessary. I guess if it was used on a character that spammed Hustle and had Psionic Meditation, it could be abused a bit... but they'd be paying power points and swift actions for it. So I still don't think that would really be overpowered. I've never played a martial adept, though. Maybe I'm underestimating how useful it is to get your maneuvers back whenever you want.

[VennDygrem]

Recalling maneuvers is not really that bad. I mean, the feat Adaptive Style technically allows this at-will but uses a Full-Round Action to change your Readied Maneuvers. Sudden Recovery is closer, by allowing a swift action to recover one maneuver, but it's 1/day.

The other powerword abilities are 2/day. We can just say the powerword allows you to recall an expended maneuver 2/day. That makes it stronger than the feat, but to be honest the feat is underpowered.

On that note, Sudden Recovery now works 3/day instead of 1/day.

[PhaedrusXY]

Recalling maneuvers is not really that bad. I mean, the feat Adaptive Style technically allows this at-will but uses a Full-Round Action to change your Readied Maneuvers. Sudden Recovery is closer, by allowing a swift action to recover one maneuver, but it's 1/day.

The other powerword abilities are 2/day. We can just say the powerword allows you to recall an expended maneuver 2/day. That makes it stronger than the feat, but to be honest the feat is underpowered.

On that note, Sudden Recovery now works 3/day instead of 1/day.

Great. With our without expending focus and/or using a swift action?  I considered Extra Granted Maneuver, but man is this build hard-up for feats, hence the Erudite dip. That dip also opens up using psionic items for just about any power, and manifesting 1st level utility powers as needed, though. Which is quite nice.

[VennDygrem]

Just a swift action without expending focus. Honestly, I was being lazy the first time around. I tried to incorporate both the psionic part and the initiator part, but as you're better versed in psionic mechanics, it ended up as being sloppy.

I'm not designing this to be included in some big collection of homebrew content, so I'm just giving you the core of what you were, I believe, looking for- while balancing it against its peer abilities.