Reinventing the Adepts

Psion · Apr 19, 2002

Okay, lame and possibly obscure play off of a movie title.

Anyways, I have never really like the adept class. Typically if I want a tribal spellcaster, I have made it a cleric or a sorcerer. The adept always seemed sort of chumpy to me.

Now that I have the shaman's handbook, I almost want to drop it right in the adept's place. You know, all adepts in a community become shamans.

Anyone else really find the class... appendicital and unexciting?

Edit: Hey, I'll add a poll!

Vaxalon · Apr 19, 2002

For civilized areas, I use a "mere priest" NPC class. It bothers me that so many adepts show up in the standard city generation tables.

Irda Ranger · Apr 19, 2002

Whoo-hoo! First vote!

Originally posted by Psion
[Q]Anyways, I have never really like the adept class. Typically if I want a tribal spellcaster, I have made it a cleric or a sorcerer. The adept always seemed sort of chumpy to me.

Now that I have the shaman's handbook, I almost want to drop it right in the adept's place. You know, all adepts in a community become shamans. [/Q]

I like the adept. Just there are FIGHTERS and warrior/ chumps, the adept is the chump of spellcasters. Lets face it, would you be an Adept if you could be a Cleric or Wizard? Of course not! Unfortunately, some people don't get that option. I think the that Adept class makes a wonderful village wise woman or travelling herbman. I use them all the time, even in the cities. My campaign is one with a Colony of Empire feel, and the Druids and Adepts are the native religion, while the Clerics are the Empire's missionaries. It works pretty well I think.

As for the Shaman's Handbook, it looks interesting, but I don't think I am going to get it. The Core Rules have all the classes I need (except a decent Ranger of course

). If anyone in my campaign did get it though, I probably would swap out Adepts for Shamans in primitive tribes.

Irda Ranger

Psion · Apr 19, 2002

Re: Whoo-hoo! First vote!

Irda Ranger said:
I like the adept. Just there are FIGHTERS and warrior/ chumps, the adept is the chump of spellcasters.

Maybe it's just me, but I find the concept of ordinary spellcasters somehow undesirable.

Lets face it, would you be an Adept if you could be a Cleric or Wizard?

My point exactly!

BiggusGeekus · Apr 19, 2002

The adept has a great spell list. You get cures, buffs, invisibility, polymorph, and a few direct damage spells. They cast these spells as a divine caster, so once you learn how to use armor (say by taking a level of fighter) you can cast that lightning bolt in full platemail with a tower shield. The word "wow" comes to mind.

But they are an NPC class and they recieve no direct benifits. What I would personally to do make them better suited for PCs:

* give them light armor
* give them a metamagic feat at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level
* give them one extra skill point per level

Viola!

Crothian · Apr 19, 2002

Psion said:
Okay, lame and possibly obscure play off of a movie title.

So, could an Adept be an Abbotts? I didn't think it was that obscure.

Aaron L · Apr 19, 2002

I myself would like a divine spellcaster class that isn't proficient with heavy armor and shields, and has a bad BAB and low hit points. Maybe with bonus metamagic Feats. A Priest class. I use the Cleric as a specific military trained warrior priest, and really only one or two religions of my setting have these kinds of people.

Horacio · Apr 19, 2002

BiggusGeekus said:
The adept has a great spell list. You get cures, buffs, invisibility, polymorph, and a few direct damage spells. They cast these spells as a divine caster, so once you learn how to use armor (say by taking a level of fighter) you can cast that lightning bolt in full platemail with a tower shield. The word "wow" comes to mind.

But they are an NPC class and they recieve no direct benifits. What I would personally to do make them better suited for PCs:

* give them light armor
* give them a metamagic feat at 5th, 10th, 15th, and 20th level
* give them one extra skill point per level

Viola!

I like a lot the Adept class.
Like BiggusGeekus, I think their spell list is great, and I like it's divine magic. I think they are almost the best NPC class.

In my games, I buff them a bit to have a shaman-like PC class. I give them light armor and two more skill points per level, but no extra metamagic.

Garmorn · Apr 19, 2002

I use them for all of the clerks and adminstrators of verious churchs and wizard guilds. They are those who learn spells only as a side affect of where/and whom they work for/with.

Cyronax · Apr 20, 2002

Aaron L said:
I myself would like a divine spellcaster class that isn't proficient with heavy armor and shields, and has a bad BAB and low hit points. Maybe with bonus metamagic Feats. A Priest class. I use the Cleric as a specific military trained warrior priest, and really only one or two religions of my setting have these kinds of people.

I felt the same way you about clerics. Of all the PC classes, I think the cleric is fairly obnoxious. There supposed to be generic divine spellcasters, but I still think they have a way overblown spell list.

Anyway, the real point I was going to make here Aaron, was to recommend you look at the Ecclesiastic class from the Netbook of classes found here. That class focuses more on casting divine magic than combate, while having similar combat abilities to the wizard. That seems similar to what you were describing.

I use the ecclesiastic class in conjunction with clerics. Some religions have members of both classes in their divine spellcaster hierarchy, while others have only one or the other.

Hope that helps,
C.I.D.