Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs

[tusk]

What, 3 days after, and nobody gives a fuck?

Anyway, Here's a review of Race of the Dragon.

Disciple of the Eye: Intended for Monks. Swift action to Shaken(sub-par DC), shaken attack roll target with HD lower than you, get dark vision 120ft, blind sense 30ft(not stackable). Weak +1.

Dracolexi: For spontaneous arcane casters. Somewhat weird entry requirements. 9/10 arcane casting, 1 bonus feat(either Eschew Material or Still spell). 7th level lets you regain your highest spell slot 1/day. Lets you get your Powerwords 1 level earlier(8th to 7th), and you get to ignore Silence and DARKNESS!!111(yawn). +1 for Bard, weak +0 for Sorcerer.

Dragon Devotee: You can't have Draconic templates to enter this class. 2/5 Sorc-only casting(ewww). Although it is justified to give up 1 CL to get +2 on your Charisma. +1 as a dip, -1 for going farther.

Dragonheart Mage: 8/10 casting. You get to trade your spell slot for breath attack(1st class level=2d6, 6th=2d8, 10th=3d6). And you get 3 Bonus Dragon feats. -1 for Sorcerer. +0 for Bard and everyone else.

Singer of Concordance: Name would imply this is a class for Bards, but this is actually for Cleric of Io. Full casting, 1st level get you Immunity to first compulsion effect of the day(+4 saving throw afterwards, which your allies get if within 10ft). 1 bonus Domain at 2nd level. 5th get you Lesser Globe of Invulnerability. 6th get you another 1d8 of your healing. 8th get you Dimensional Anchor. Capstone seems to imply unlimited planar traveling for the whole group(to a from the globe). +1 for 2 level dip. +0 for longer.

[Surreal]

Discussion on Races of the Dragon:
Dragon Devotee should be +0. It is not meant to be a casting class; it's more like a stepping stone for the melee types.
Singer of Concordance should be +1. Assuming you meet the fluff prereqs, you lose nothing by entering this class except a higher turn level if you're a cleric.

Discussion on Complete Warrior:
Master of the Unseen Hand is +0 if you have telekinesis as a SLA/Su (such as by being a ghost)
Mindspy is +0 if you have detect thoughts as a SLA/Su (such as via Cabinet Trickster or Exorcist of the Silver Flame).

New book: Races of Stone
Battlesmith: +0, focused on crafting, nothing extraordinary
Blade Bravo: +1, solid overall
Cragtop Archer: +1, solid abilities for any archer
Dawncaller: -1, looks nice at first, but then you realize you don't actually gain anything useful (early enough to matter) and you lose casting
Deepwarden: +1, pretty solid even past a 2-level dip
Divine Prankster: +1, it's full casting and you gain new abilities and lose nothing (assuming cleric entry)
Earth Dreamer: +1, full casting, earth glide is a powerful ability
Goliath Liberator: +0
Iron Mind: -1 (+0 if ardent with practiced manifester), only gets 8/10 manifesting, mettle of will is nice though
Peregrine Runner: +0, gain skirmish, climb, more speed, slow fall
Runesmith: +1, if you want to play a dwarf gish in full plate, then this is a no brainer
Shadowcraft Mage: +2, do I even need to explain this one? Even if it were 4/5 it would still be up there.
Stoneblessed: I give this a +1 because I rate it not on its own but as an enabler to get into other PrCs
Stonedeath Assassin: +0
Stonespeaker Guardian: +0, full casting and good abilities, but it's hard to improve on a druid

[tusk]

Discussion on Races of the Dragon:
Dragon Devotee should be +0. It is not meant to be a casting class; it's more like a stepping stone for the melee types.

  I'm not sure I understand that part. I personally know a lot of casters could use that +2. In this case, it's rather 1 CL or +2 Charisma, pretty straight-forward to me. The +1 was warranted under the assumption that it is only a 1-level dip for casters(albeit a weak one). Non-caster entry, in my opinion, nets it a SOLID +1, because you get other shiny out of it, and you don't care about casting.

Singer of Concordance should be +1. Assuming you meet the fluff prereqs, you lose nothing by entering this class except a higher turn level if you're a cleric.

Turning alone in my opinion does not warrant a +1. Sure, if you are the Ghost Buster, Turning level would be crucial, but that's too narrow a focus IMO, but to each his own. So +1 all around then?


Yay for someone actually take the time to read mys stuff!!

[sonofzeal]

Thank you guys!  I've put all the new books (six of them!) up for comments on GiantITP, to try and get a bit more input before I start adding things to the master list.  Another day or two should do it.

[sonofzeal]

Unless running a really evil campaign I doubt PC will need to know the rankings of the PrCs in BoVD.  But I love monte Cook's work and DMs are free to use these PrCs to challenge his players.  Since this is for bad guys once a day moves increase in usefulness, esp if the NPC is a BBEG.

This was pretty tough because the summoned devils could in turn summon other devils hence all PrC are under the assumption that they do lose this ability when summoned by a mortal.  If you want to be mean then add 1 to all the rankings.  Need clarification on this one.

Here are the PrCs or vile darkness:

Cancer mage: +1 love the flavor but it is pretty nasty in use as well.  Entry class seems to be a ranger, which has ways to infect targets, control them, even inhabit them indefinitely.  Cure disease makes them less useful.

Demonlogist: -1, needs to be able to cast lvl 3 spells to qualify but restarts your spell/CL progression.  Some things like +4 to summons is nice and no SR on charm and dominate is really nice, but in the end you lose all yyour previous hard work.

Diabolist: +1 full casting is great but the entry feats are not (esp evil brand).  This PrC would mostly benefit an evoker but diabolism deals evil damage for all your spells so it can be used in other casters as well.  Being able to deal vile damage is not something to underestimate.

Dis of Amodeus: +2 lose of 4 CL but this might not be a mage entry to work but I picked illusionist as the entry class but a telepath would work just as well (or better).  Hellcats are nice but can range from 9-24 HD so i'm not sure how to rate that, but only one of the Disciples that can summon more than one of them.  Many save or lose that involve controling others or turning weaker evil NPCs against you.  In the right setting there is no limit to what he can throw at you.

Dis of Baalzebul: +1 with rogue entry.  Lose of 2d6 but you get more non-combat options (tongue of the devil) and other once per day stuff.  The best of them is the ability to summon bone and horned devils (up to 45HD).

Dis of Disapater: +2 with fighter entry. full BAB, Iron lore (AKA trap finding for iron traps) is pretty useless since PCs rarely use traps (even in their own strongholds), but the rest of the stuff is pretty good.  Iron hews is a nice bonus to damage, rusting grasp will have your PCs crying, and iron power stacks with improved critical, improves your AR and damage.  Iron power is really the best of that bunch and can turn a regular greatsword into a crit hitting machine like a kurki.  Now that is heavy hitting indeed.  Later on Dis of Dispater get iron skin and iron body  giving it good defense as well.  Erinyes may not be the most powerful devils but they are sexy and they fly.  Great way to scare your PCs.


Dis of Mammon:  +0 this is meant for huckster rogues or bards.  No sneak attack progression or spells, and you need to do a degrading sexual act..... like 2 devils and a cup type stuff.  You do gain a lot in terms of defense by diverting attacks and spells, and in money and items via cheating and stealing.  This NPC is more likely to completely screw your PCs up by betrayal or other underhanded means.  On the battlefield he is not all that great but he can summon bone and horn devils to do the fighting for him, or disarm you via his steal or take object.  He could be a +1 with creative use.

Dis of Mephistophheles: +1 another full BAB.  Almost like a vile pyrokinetist, BoVD says casters go for this PrC but a fighter or barbarian seems to make more sense.  I don't really see how hellfire is different from regular fire and can't find the spell so this could be +2 for all I know.  Capstone gives DR 30/+1 and deals damage to attackers.  Way to defend and attack at once.  Summons barbed devils, which are not bad.

Lifedrinker: -1 could be -2 but the class features are really nice.  NO CL progression at all.  This flies in the face of logic since most of its special moves are free metamagic feats.  I guess a DM could be mean and just make a vampire mage 20/ lifedrinker 10 but that NPC would be almost invincible.

Mortal hunter: +1 (almost +2) full BAB, bonuses to all saves (esp will saves), smite any mortal, mass stun, death attack (no waiting 3 rounds!), polymorph at will (well kind of) and a host nasty spells, this PrC makes assassins look like bitches.  Mortals means any living beings, so dragons count.  Entry class would be a ranger to stack favored enemy.  The fact that this class has favored enemy as "all living things" makes him very deadly.

Souleater: -1 This was a tough one since I didn't know what the entry class was.  I settled for psiwarrior that used claw attacks (king of smack type) since preqs were alertness (via psicrystal) and weapon focus (natural attack).  Psiwarrior will lose 3 feats taking this PrC for some temporary bonuses on STR, DEX, saves.  Only good thing about this PrC is getting slave wrights at lvl 9, the rest is not worth the lose in feats.

Thrall of demogoron: +1 maybe +2.  Entry class should be a templated NPC with a lvl 1 spell like ability, mage dips/multiclassed lose too much CL.  The ability to take an extra 2 full rounds of actions makes it a +1 all by itself.  A bunch of save or lose/suck and extended range AND limited wish make it very strong.

Thrall of Graz'zt: -1 entry class sorcerer.  Lose of 4 CL for some bonuses on damage.  Not all that great.

Thrall of Juiblex: +2 full BAB, immune to crits and sneak attacks and polymorph at will..... for a barbarian raging..... pretty scary.  And you get a bunch of special attacks that deal lots of damage (corrosive spew 8d6 cone attack).  If you want to kill your PCs this might be the PrC to use.

Thrall of Orcus: +0 full BAB, fighter can meet the requirements by lvl 4.  Gain some immunities, summon undead, AoO that lowers AR and damage, and most importantly wings.  Overall, not much more than a straight fighter.

Vermin lord: -1 lose of 4 CL for some added defense and control of bugs.  Very meh PrC.

Warrior of Darkness: +1 full BAB, uses vile medicines to boost his combat (roid rage!!!!).  With high enough CHR is can do some nasty stuff (full attack after moving/charging, +to any stat, +to movement etc, bonus feats). With the right combo this guy is pretty decent.

Again I need clarification on if the demons/devils summoned can still summon others of its kind.  That might change the tiers a bit.

[Echoes]

Dis of Amodeus: +2 lose of 4 CL but this might not be a mage entry to work but I picked illusionist as the entry class but a telepath would work just as well (or better).  Hellcats are nice but can range from 9-24 HD so i'm not sure how to rate that, but only one of the Disciples that can summon more than one of them.  Many save or lose that involve controling others or turning weaker evil NPCs against you.  In the right setting there is no limit to what he can throw at you.

Disciple of Asmodeus is a 10/10 spellcasting PrC by the text, actually. This makes it a +1 for PCs, and a strong +1 or weak +2 for Beguiler entry.

[PlzBreakMyCampaign]

Nope summons can't summon more summons.

Also can we check the hole 'mortal bane gets a favored enemy' thing? Because it doesn't mention favored enemy anywhere. I'd say its favored enemy-like, similar to a bunch of other PrCs that are too crappy to just say 'you gain a Favored Enemy'

[Samb]

Nope summons can't summon more summons.

Also can we check the hole 'mortal bane gets a favored enemy' thing? Because it doesn't mention favored enemy anywhere. I'd say its favored enemy-like, similar to a bunch of other PrCs that are too crappy to just say 'you gain a Favored Enemy'

It specifically says mortal bane stacks with favored enemies, which is why I picked ranger entry to begin with.

Dis of Amodeus has full CL? Also made a mistake on it's ranking should be +0 not +2.  I'll have to look that up again when i get off work. Hellfire is nothing that special, just goes through protection and fire resistance. No change on Dis of mephtopheles.

[Surreal]

The spellcasting text for Asmodeus is fuzzy since it says "every other level".

I wonder if we could do something odd with Demonoligist like... Wizard 5/Ur-priest 2/Malconvoker 5/XYZ 2/Demonologist 4
get 9th level spells through ur-priest, use malconvoker and demonologist to pump out the summons

[Samb]

The spellcasting text for Asmodeus is fuzzy since it says "every other level".

I wonder if we could do something odd with Demonoligist like... Wizard 5/Ur-priest 2/Malconvoker 5/XYZ 2/Demonologist 4
get 9th level spells through ur-priest, use malconvoker and demonologist to pump out the summons

malconvokers need to be nonevil while demonologists are evil. That would make for an awesome summoner if it were doable.

[Echoes]

The spellcasting text for Asmodeus is fuzzy since it says "every other level".

Yeah, but that doesn't track with the table either, which gives them spellcasting at every odd level plus 10th. I'd say it's a toss-up, frankly. The whole book is full of random strange though, so I guess it's par for the course.

[Solo]

Obviously, you are too sane to understand the weird and eldritch truths scribed therein.

IA IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN!

[sonofzeal]

Obviously, you are too sane to understand the weird and eldritch truths scribed therein.

IA IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN!

Don't you mean "ia ia erythnul fharlanghn"?

Anyway, there is currently some debate going on elsewhere over the viability of the Soul Eater's level-draining mechanic.  Does every attack with your natural weapons drain?  Can you make multiple drains per turn (say, as part of a flurry)?  Or are you limited to only a single standard-action drain per turn?

[Salt_Crow]

Obviously, you are too sane to understand the weird and eldritch truths scribed therein.

IA IA! CTHULHU FHTAGN!

Don't you mean "ia ia erythnul fharlanghn"?

Anyway, there is currently some debate going on elsewhere over the viability of the Soul Eater's level-draining mechanic.  Does every attack with your natural weapons drain?  Can you make multiple drains per turn (say, as part of a flurry)?  Or are you limited to only a single standard-action drain per turn?

The exact wording of the ability is what's creating so much confusion. It says "... the touch of a soul eater bestows one negative level on its target" which I always assumed to be a melee touch attack performed as a standard action. A similar ability in BoED, Touch of Golden Ice feat, specifically includes '...any touch with your bare hand, fist or natural weapon...' which definitely allows multiple attempts per round as part of full attack or merely by contact (shaking hands, for example).

So yeah, 3.5 equivalent of this ability (wrt how it is used) would be Lich's paralyzing touch IMO.

[Zombieboots]

Anyway, there is currently some debate going on elsewhere over the viability of the Soul Eater's level-draining mechanic.  Does every attack with your natural weapons drain?  Can you make multiple drains per turn (say, as part of a flurry)?  Or are you limited to only a single standard-action drain per turn?

Hnm the Souleater was marked at -1? Well here is my take on it, I may be wrong but this has been my impression of the class:

The requirements are rather easy to met, without resorting to templates or other tricks there is simply Elans or Elf (with otherworldly), Changelings (with that racial feat) and for classes there are Monks, Psi-warriros, Swordsages, Druids and their shapechaing ilk.

For the rather easy requirements the class itself grant Full BAB, all three saves as good saves, d8 in HD which is decent and 4 skill points which is better then the generic 2 that most classes get stuck with.

Soul Strength, Enhancement, Endurance, Agility, and Power all grant the user +4 to Str Con Agi, +2 to Save, abilities DCs, and abilities used for 24 hours. This happened whenever a soul eater attacks a living oppoent, you don't even need to finish off the opponent, just one attack. These buffs augments it's melee role fairly well, because thats where a it should be.

The cap stone ability Soul Slave, grants you a wight army. Which is what you use in case you run into anything immune to you energy drain. Your army.

Lastly at 6th level you get Soul Radiance - which is the as the Shapechange spell, five to three levels earlier then wizards. Only the kicker is this version has no HD limit and no CL limit- well ok it's limited to anything you "Kill" which is a rather laxed limit in my opinion.

I apologize. A little ranty, but in my opinion they are a solid tier +1 and I haven't even mentioned they actaully drain levels yet.

[woodenbandman]

Nobody liked my review of ToM, I guess it had been reviewed already. I'd still like to argue the case of Anima Mage as a +2.

[sonofzeal]

I'm leaning towards Souleater at +2 myself, I just wanted to resolve that rules question first.

Nobody liked my review of ToM, I guess it had been reviewed already. I'd still like to argue the case of Anima Mage as a +2.

You make a good case, and unless anyone objects I'll bump it up at the next edit.

[Salt_Crow]

I agree AM should be ranked at +2. Apart from being one of my favourite classes, this allows, say, sorcerers with their low Spellcraft to imitate Incantatrix as well as a wizard could, and you don't have to give up a whole school of magic to do so.

Of course, that 1-level dip requirement (+ one feat) into binder may delay your already later-than-is-optimal 9th-level spell into the realm of gishes and doublies, but no-one's making you play a sorcerer instead of wizard

Wait, it IS a doubly too 

Anyways, borderline +1/+2 class, leaning heavily onto +2 with sorcerer entry and +1 with wizard entry (because there's a more viable Incantatrix with their high Int and whatnot). There's nothing stopping one from going sor 4/binder 1/AM 10/Io7V 5 or something either XD


p.s. might elaborate more on why I recommend sorcerer entry into AM than wizard: a sorcerer, with its CHA-dependency synergise well with binding abilities (which require CHA and occasionally CON) better than Int-heavy wizards. Also as I implied in the first line a wizard would be better off going with Incantatrix because they are quite capable of making high Spellcraft checks while sorcerer of the same level could as well not.
But then again, persisant spell and sorcerer's limited number of spells known don't exactly get along either (if you want to go persisting spells), but one could always choose Runestaves (yes you can apply metamagic to them at the time of casting).

[jameswilliamogle]

I think its a +1.5 either way, personally.  But, its one of those weird ones...  Totally wicked powerful with Persistent Spell at +2, but just +1 with anything else (a Twinned spell 3/day is hardly abusive).  EDIT: And, on this scale, the Sorcerer has NO class features, so it automatically gets an extra +1 higher than Wizards for any given PrC...

Kind of like how Planar Shepard is like a +3 with one particular choice of plane, and down to -1 for a bad choice (I think... doesn't it not advance Wildshape?  AFB)...

[Salt_Crow]

I think its a +1.5 either way, personally.  But, its one of those weird ones...  Totally wicked powerful with Persistent Spell at +2, but just +1 with anything else (a Twinned spell 3/day is hardly abusive).  EDIT: And, on this scale, the Sorcerer has NO class features, so it automatically gets an extra +1 higher than Wizards for any given PrC...

Kind of like how Planar Shepard is like a +3 with one particular choice of plane, and down to -1 for a bad choice (I think... doesn't it not advance Wildshape?  AFB)...

1. Well the ability description seems to imply that you can use multiple metamagic feats per use of Vestige Metamagic. Which means it's kinda like Blastificer-lite only that you don't spend any charges and without wands. Of course you'll need to know all the metamagic feats though

2. Planar shepherd advances WS, spellcasting, animal companion on top of the possible cheese. So even if you chose Thelanis as your plane of choice it ain't exactly -1 material. +0 maybe?