Author Topic: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs  (Read 76946 times)

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Operation Shoestring

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #200 on: April 30, 2009, 10:09:10 PM »
Serene Guardian +2
It's much better than fighter, but more importantly the extremely general wording (and uncapped nature) of the "resonance" ability makes an alchemist-fire chucking rogue pretty awesome (splash damage woo!).  At third level it functions as half monk progression, so you get wis to AC as well as bonus feats.  Oh, and at eighth level?  No save, supernatural Confusion, provided you can hit a target more than once in a single round.  A pretty jawsome class.
BAB +6/Lawful alignments.
The only downside is the affiliation score prereq, but that's no biggie (and it's essentially flavor). 

Sauce pls?

Surreal

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #201 on: April 30, 2009, 11:30:31 PM »
I would only give the Serene Guardian +1. If all the abilities were condensed into a 5 level class I'd be more excited about it, but as is I feel kinda meh about it. Resonance is neat, but by the time you set it up for any appreciable effect the opponent should be dead by then.
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The_Mad_Linguist

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #202 on: May 01, 2009, 01:26:28 AM »
Serene Guardian +2
It's much better than fighter, but more importantly the extremely general wording (and uncapped nature) of the "resonance" ability makes an alchemist-fire chucking rogue pretty awesome (splash damage woo!).  At third level it functions as half monk progression, so you get wis to AC as well as bonus feats.  Oh, and at eighth level?  No save, supernatural Confusion, provided you can hit a target more than once in a single round.  A pretty jawsome class.
BAB +6/Lawful alignments.
The only downside is the affiliation score prereq, but that's no biggie (and it's essentially flavor). 

Sauce pls?

Shattered gates of slaughterguarde (reposted here: http://www.dndgamer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7038 as well)

The fact that resonance works with *anything* is what appeals to me.  Confusing an opponent, no save, no SR, every round, is very nifty (splash damage FTW).   It's certainly two tiers up from the fighter.

That, and resonance points never go away.  If you face a lot of recurring enemies (which seem to be somewhat common in adventure paths / whatevertheheckthegenerictermis), building up resonance over the course of a couple encounters can be deadly.

Being able to substitute concentration checks for all failed will saves is just icing on the cake.  You'll never fail a will save again.
« Last Edit: May 06, 2009, 04:32:19 AM by The_Mad_Linguist »
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Ronin

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #203 on: May 05, 2009, 01:18:11 AM »
hi,
i was wandering how the ordained champion from the complete champion fairs on the +/- chart for prestige classes ? .

 And, is 3 levels better then 5 for that class ?

tyvm

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #204 on: May 05, 2009, 08:34:11 AM »
Unless you want to MAD like hell, there is no point in going to 5

I'd say its a +1. Nice progressions (with a CL loss) and a sweet 3rd level ability. But mostly good for a buffmonkey or cohort.
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Suzerain

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #205 on: May 16, 2009, 03:32:54 AM »
I'm in the process of preparing for an update. I've added the source (i.e. book) of each PrC in the data view and I'm officially retiring the visual view, as it's not up-to-date and may still contain errors. I'm almost done, except for the large "miscellaneous" category, which unfortunately also contains a lot more books compared to other groups.

Anyways, this post is to show that I'm still alive, and to report some of the oversights I discovered while combing through all books.

  • Unseen Seer is listed twice. According to discussion, it belongs to +1.
  • Battlesmith (RoS) is missing, its tier is +0
  • Dawncaller (RoS) is missing, its tier is -1
  • Iron Mind (RoS) is missing, its tier is -1 (+0 for Ardent entry)
  • Shadowmind (CAdv) has not been evaluated (and personally I can't imagine anything profiting from it)
  • Seeker of the Song (CArc) has not been evaluated (didn't read it but quick searches revealed it's crap)

I didn't document some of the mistakes I fixed while doing the first version of the sheet, so this will probably not catch everything. Also, the list has been changed at least once since then, I believe.

Err, yeah... it's late/early so excuse any lack of coherence. I'll go visit Luthien in my dreams now.

Edit: Also, "Doomguard" was meant to be "Doomlord" (PlH).
« Last Edit: May 16, 2009, 02:06:23 PM by Suzerain »

Samb

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #206 on: May 16, 2009, 04:34:53 AM »
I have to object to cognitin their on -1.  If you use a rogue as the entry then it might be -1, but rogues will have a hard time qualifing for it. A psion is not a good entry either as you only get 6/10 ML out of it. Yet, those are the only entry classes considered.

The real entry class is clearly wilder, which no one uses and hence easy to out on.  Everyone seems to overlook the fact that in 10 levels you gain 8 free TELEPATH only powers for free. Every level you lose ML you gain 2 powers without using EK.  Wilders who only get 11 powers in 20 levels, this almost doubles their powers known and in telepath only list to boot.  Hint: schism is on this list

What really makes this over the top is that it says you have to be able manifest the power in order to pick it. This means that if you have practiced manifester (a feat any psionic PC should have anyway for schism) you can pick any power as if you didn't lose ML to begin with. In fact, "be able to cast" can also mean under the effects of a wild surge as well so you could pick even higher level powers faster than if you leveled straight wilder.  This alone more than makes up for the lose in ML and an easy +2.  

You also gain a bunch of spell like abilities that further make up for a wilder's lack of varity, one of them being read thoughts AT WILL.

Whoever put cognition thief as -1 clearly didn't know what the entry class was. Not that I blame him since wilder is very much overlooked, but I really would like know what rationale you can give to say it is not awesome for wilder.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2009, 04:40:07 AM by Samb »

woodenbandman

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #207 on: May 16, 2009, 11:16:35 AM »
You do miss out on your high level known powers, so no supermetamorphosis.

Samb

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #208 on: May 16, 2009, 11:49:43 AM »
You do miss out on your high level known powers, so no supermetamorphosis.
You can't get it as a wilder unless you take a shifter sub level. Greater metamorphosis is a 9th level power.  So you need to be epic to take it with EK. Shifter builds are usually not able to pick CogThief in the first place since both are setting specific.  If your DM allows for cross setting builds are a builds shifters probably would not benefit from taking CogThief all the way, but a 4 level dip for 4 extra powers would very much worthwhile since he can still get greater metamorphoisis.

You gain access to high level telepath powers, even ninth level ones since wild surge and/or practises manifester satisfied the conditions to pick them earlier than usual. 
I states this already but maybe it was tough to understand so here's an example:
Wilder6/CogThief10 with practised manifester has a ML of 16 and gains 2 telepath powers at level ten. By virture of wild surge, you can boost you ML to 18, qualifying to pick 9th level telepath powers (you only need 17 to qualify for 9th level spells). One of them being psychic chigury the other being true mind switch(!).  If you don't went to rely on wild surges to manifest your higher level powers, you could enter cogthief later.

Even as a dip later on, you can get schism and dominate. 
« Last Edit: May 16, 2009, 12:37:54 PM by Samb »

woodenbandman

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #209 on: May 16, 2009, 12:50:18 PM »
Yeah but you also lose out on your maximum level of powers known. I'm not actually looking at the book, but Wilder's got capped power levels that it can learn from advancing its class progression. You'd lose out on those, so you could get high level telepath powers but not be able to get any other high level powers.

Samb

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #210 on: May 16, 2009, 01:23:35 PM »
Yeah but you also lose out on your maximum level of powers known. I'm not actually looking at the book, but Wilder's got capped power levels that it can learn from advancing its class progression. You'd lose out on those, so you could get high level telepath powers but not be able to get any other high level powers.
First I don't agree with you that the psion/wilder 9th level are better than the telepath.  Second, even if it were true, the trade for 9th level general powers for 9th level telepath powers would make CogThief +1, not -1 as it is listed.  Wilder can lose up to 2 ML and still have one 9th level power, by taking CogThief to 10 you trade 2 9th level psion/wilder for 8 telepath powers (9th level included).

Have you read what psychic chiurgery and true mind switch can do? 

Suzerain

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #211 on: May 16, 2009, 03:52:34 PM »
Ok people, this is the new version of the spreadsheet. Draconomicon is not integrated at the moment, as I'm trying to figure out different Book Groups (I kind of 'feel' like the Dragon-themed books belong together. Oh well).

Please inform me about any mistakes in the spreadsheet itself. Enjoy  ;)

Edit:
Apparently, we're missing evaluations for these two from Cityscape:

Ebonmar Infiltrator (Ci)
Crimson Scourge (Ci)

Updated non-setting books needed: Complete Champion, Dragon Magic, Dungeonscape, Fiendish Codex II, Ghostwalk and Weapons of Legacy.
« Last Edit: May 16, 2009, 08:34:15 PM by Suzerain »

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #212 on: May 16, 2009, 09:16:49 PM »
I'm not sure the Justice of Weald and Woe is a -1 PrC.  It seems more than adequately a +0.  Whether it is a +1 or not I can't say, but I think the goodies you get are quite valuable for many archers.

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #213 on: May 16, 2009, 10:04:03 PM »
You're right, it should be +0.

Here's Tam_OConnor's explanation:
[spoiler]Justice of Weald and Woe: Elven racial supremacist
Tier: -1
Logical entry: Ranger 6, Weapon Focus (longbow)
Levels: 10, 4th level casting; rangerish spell list
Abilities: Another 3/4 BAB martial class. 2 bonus archery feats (2nd and 8th), sneak attack +2d6 (3rd & 7th), hide in plain sight (9th), death attack and poison immunity (10th).[/spoiler]

Ranger 6 (without wildshape) can profit from this. Early access to hide in plain sight, sneak attack, some ranged combat goodies. Higher-level entry with rogueish classes is (I think) not recommended, except for a 2-lvl-dip. But +0 should do just fine.

So... I will be periodically updating the file, meanwhile I'll log changes in this thread (and in my spreadsheet locally). If you have any suggestions on alternative file formats, or different hosting, let me know. Not sure if I'll work myself into Google Spreadsheets just now, though I won't exclude that option for now. The next step I see is list the optimal entries to the classes in some way or other. And also some way to preserve the commentary. But that's a lot of work, so don't expect anything any time soon.

Changes:

Even
Cognition Thief (was -1)
Justice of the Weald and Woe (was -1)
« Last Edit: May 16, 2009, 10:07:53 PM by Suzerain »

Samb

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #214 on: May 16, 2009, 11:32:27 PM »
I know I'm being a pain but as the only person that even plays wilder I can assure you that cognition thief is at least a +1.  Please try to see how wilders work and what cogthief gives them. 6/10 is meaningless because of practised manifester (standard feat for schism users).  The powers you can select in cognition thief simplily that you can manifest them.

A wilder 16  would have 12 powers with the educated variant while a wilder6/cogthief10 would have 16 and access to telepath list and 9th level powers. Thats even with psychic warriors.  If you have any knowledge of wilders l, you would know that their biggest weakest is lack of powers and restrictive power selection. This PrC solves both problems.

It also gives a bunch of psi like abilities, one of them being read thoughts AT WILL to further increase the versitility lacking in wilders.

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #215 on: May 17, 2009, 12:52:12 AM »
Well, I'm basing all of this on consensus, so if we can establish consensus, I'd add that. Let's just see if anyone can contribute anything to the discussion.

Since I am personally not very familiar with the Wilder (or psionic classes in general), I can't say much either way. However, overchannel/wild surge is supposed to be temporary, isn't it? I wouldn't assume that you can learn stuff with temporary bonuses. As far as I understood the discussion on GITP, it would be only a matter of entering/finishing the class one level later, so whatever.

Is what you're saying roughly this?

Cognition Thief (Rogue/Psion): -1
Cognition Thief (Rogue/Wilder): +1

If so, can others agree on that? And would the Ardent by any chance benefit from this, through his weird powers known mechanic?

And would you agree on a -1 or -2 for Shadowmind (CAdv)? I think its signature abilities are weak, and it loses too much either way. Unless there's something I'm missing.

Samb

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #216 on: May 17, 2009, 02:45:14 AM »
Well, I'm basing all of this on consensus, so if we can establish consensus, I'd add that. Let's just see if anyone can contribute anything to the discussion.

Since I am personally not very familiar with the Wilder (or psionic classes in general), I can't say much either way. However, overchannel/wild surge is supposed to be temporary, isn't it? I wouldn't assume that you can learn stuff with temporary bonuses. As far as I understood the discussion on GITP, it would be only a matter of entering/finishing the class one level later, so whatever.

Is what you're saying roughly this?

Cognition Thief (Rogue/Psion): -1
Cognition Thief (Rogue/Wilder): +1

If so, can others agree on that? And would the Ardent by any chance benefit from this, through his weird powers known mechanic?

And would you agree on a -1 or -2 for Shadowmind (CAdv)? I think its signature abilities are weak, and it loses too much either way. Unless there's something I'm missing.
Even if you don't count wild surge (which I just don't want to get into a debate on) you could just enter CogThief at 7 instead of 6 and still come out with level 9 powers by the end of 10 levels.

No rogue for entry, just plain wilder.  Although you could enter it earlier with illithid blast if you equate psionic blast with mind blast as any psionic class.  Only wilder really benefits from this PrC since they have a serve shortage on powers.  Certainly this would be a complete waste for a telepath, but could be of marginal benefit for other psi classes.  A psiwarrior and psion would have to give up 2-3 bonus feats, but wilders are only really giving up surging euphoria, which quite honestly isn't a lot.

I tried to stir up disscussion in GitP but like here no one uses wilders.  Which is a shame because in the right hands it is pretty darn good.

Suzerain

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #217 on: May 18, 2009, 01:55:11 AM »
I was basing the Rogue/Psionics stuff off this (and also the +0 rating earlier):

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=5959699&postcount=114

That somehow stuck in my mind. So entry would be Wilder 7 with Practiced Manifester (to meet the skills requirement, unless I'm missing something). Now, I don't see much use for a Rogue tbh, so the second entry would be psionic non-wilder. Without looking too close at mantles (your wilder thread says mantles are customizable), I guess extra telepath powers might be neat for an Ardent, too (with Practiced Manifester).

I'd currently say it's +1 for Ardents (though the investment is steeper, I guess) and +1 for wilders (because the cognition thief mechanic for picking powers is like the Ardent's). Ardents can still access 9th level powers in their mantles and via EK (they'd be trading 122pp and one feat for 8 powers known from the telepath list, psionic blast, read thoughts at will and some minor abilities).

Cognition Thief (Ardent or Wilder) +1
Cognition Thief (other entry) -1
« Last Edit: May 18, 2009, 03:08:23 AM by Suzerain »

Samb

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #218 on: May 18, 2009, 03:13:44 AM »
Yeah I just started really researching and playing wilder so it just struck me.

I can't put too much faith on the mantles variant, since it requires a DM to be very understanding.  In theory, a DM could grant you all the powers you'll ever need in one mantle (jokingly called mantle (awesome)) but that is asking for too much and would make the whole point of mantles pointless if allowed to go too far.

Practised manifester has always worked that way for ardents and cognition thief is no different.  Actually, the wording in PGtF is even very clear: "She can choose any power that she is able to manifest.  Even Cognition thieves that manifest their powers as wilders, can choose from the telepath discipline list which is otherwise forbidden to them"  seems to imply that use of wild surge to manifest the power allows you to select it, not that it makes that much of a difference. 

The fact that they specifically mention wilder also seems to hint that this PrC was made for them (as they need powers the most).

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Re: Zeal's (in-progress) Tier System for PrCs
« Reply #219 on: July 03, 2009, 02:06:35 AM »
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?
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