Break this homebrew!

[snakeman830]

I'm working on a large homebrew project and I'm trying to work on balance.  What I would like to know is the biggest abuses of the material possible.  Here are the ground rules for the start of this:

1. All levels of the homebrew prestige classes must be taken in the build.  This rule will be relaxed over time.
2. Any abuse must involve the class features.  In other words, no using tricks that can be considered broken without the homebrew material.
3. Stick to WotC material outside of the presented homebrew.  Dragon magazine is fine, but Metaphysical Shaper is not, for example.

The material to break is here.  Obviously, only one prestige class can be used in a given build since they have different racial requirements.

[bearsarebrown]

Centuar 4/ Mystic Ranger 4/Scout 4/Bow of Skerrit 5/Mystic Ranger +3
Not broken but it gets 5th level spells from the Ranger list and the Wizard list. And super easy Skirmish activation. Or use Aptitude and make it a melee Swift Hunter. Make use of that Str.
Seems solid.

Watch for Prey, how many times can you do this per day? And autopassing Spell Resistance is amazing for a one level dip. The only other effect in the game like that is Factotum 11.

[snakeman830]

Auto-passing spell resistance takes 4 out of 5 levels.  Only the auto-success on touch attacks is 1-level dip (and you still have to hit with a touch attack first and succeed on strength checks)

Watch for Prey is at-will.  To my knowledge, there is no spell that actually lets you see through solid objects, so at the very least it's a unique ability (only beaten by a magic item in core)

[Maat_Mons]

Wings of flurry is an area spell that deals force damage, dazes a creature for one round unless it succeeds on a reflex save, and allows spell resistance.  Spellwarp converts that to a ray and removes the reflex save.  Eldritch binding removes the touch attack and spell resistance.  That gives you a completely irresistible daze effect that also deals damage. 

[Surreal]

Bow of Skerrit - that's an interesting casting progression, but you'll want to put a note to clarify on how the caster levels stack up (since ranger CL is 1/2 the ranger level, bur PrCs typically add fully to the CL)

Hunter's Aim - an auto-hit just doesn't feel right. Maybe something like a +10 if you spend the full round, +20 if you spend two rounds to take aim, can be disrupted like casting

Watch for Prey - change to 1 round/class level

[Ikeren]

I was looking at the ranger one, and I was like, it's awful, it requires you to be a centaur. Then I'm looking at it a little more, and I'm of the opinion you made a prestige class that lets you play a centaur reasonably.

Then I'm looking at bears comments, and I'm like "whoa, this is weird."

Gnoll, LA buyoff, something like:
Racial Hit die 2/Wizard 3 (practised caster)/Ambusher 5/Incantatrix 10.

Frankly, a caster class for something with racial hit die is not great. You'll have to try to make it resemble passable.

The generally obvious way to make it useful is the fact you qualify with caster levels, rather than spell levels. In the hands of anyone but a gnoll, it would be a terrific filler prestige class.

Of course, while I'm writing this, Maat comes up with something far better.

[bearsarebrown]

I misread Ambusher then. Still, even for 4 levels, ignoring SR is huge. I think either making it X/day or making it grant a massive bonus would be more balanced. Maat_Mons has a great point about breaking it.

Does Hunter's Aim ignore total concealment?  ;)And line of sight?

[snakeman830]

BoS casting progression states it advances as though you had 2*BoS level Ranger levels for purposes of spellcasting (in addition to any actual Ranger casting you may have).

Hunter's Aim does not ignore line of sight/effect (your arrow still has to travel that distance and you do have to know where your target is and your exact relation to its position), but I had yet to come to a decision regarding concealment when I posted it.  I will edit this to make it clearer. 

As for the auto-hit portion, you spend a full round to make a single attack.  One. Normal. Hit.  You can't use Manyshot with this due to Manyshot requiring a Standard action.  I don't see it being overpowered.

Ambusher I had originally thought to work like this: Eldritch Binding requires you to succeed on a ranged touch attack and beat spell resistance for it to work, since it's a spell-like ability.  Thus, you have already beaten both defenses once.  In retrospect, I will probably change it to a +10 bonus to overcome SR instead of auto-overcoming (note: this is not ignoring so it doesn't bypass Magic Immunity).

Still looking for abuses on these prestige classes, though.  If the worst we've got is tuning Wings of Flurry into auto-daze, then things don't look too bad.

[bearsarebrown]

My restricting them to shitty races you really limit the power.

Bow of Skerrit would be a must-have for most archer builds if it didn't require icky centaur.

And I totally agree with you on auto-hit snakeman. Full Round for one hit is... not even that great.

[Hijax]

Can Hunter's aim be combined with other full-round attacks.

Like, horizon shot(cragtop archer, RoS, 15 range increments on a single shot)?

if so, SNIPER INCOMING!

[snakeman830]

I do think the full-round for a garunteed hit is a better deal than Order of the Bow Initiate's full-round for a bit of extra precision damage.  Not that OotBI is anywhere near worthwhile for an archer...

I don't see centaur as bad for a martial build, no matter what form you're taking.  Yeah, it makes a crappy Wizard, but that doesn't make it a bad race.  It just means it's not a Wizard race.

Gnolls, on the other hand, are quite underwhelming.  This project is aiming toward making them viable as PC's as well as some other "monsterous" races while sticking to the race's flavor as much as possible.  Maybe I should change the Eldritch Binding to auto-beating SR again just to give some reason to play a Gnoll (other than seeing through walls).